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A    LOOK    ROUND 
LITERATURE. 


ROBERT.  BUCHANAN. 


I  never  bowed  but  to  superior  worth, 

Nor  ever  failed  in  my  allegiance  there  ! — YOUNG. 


LONDON: 

WARD    AND    DOWNEY, 
12,  YORK    STREET,  COVENT    GARDEN,  W.C. 

1887. 


?M 


CHARLES  DICKENS  AND  EVANS,, 
CRYSTAL  PALACE   PRESS. 


«&  1< 

1    4 


PREFATORY    NOTE. 


MOST  of  the  articles  in  this  volume  are  reprinted 
from  the  critical  and  other  periodical  papers  of  the 
day.  They  have  no  arbitrary  connection  with  each 
other,  but  they  sufficiently  indicate  the  point  of  view 
of  a  writer  whose  opinions  are  somewhat  independent 
of  current  criticism. 

Some  of  these  opinions  will  doubtless  awaken 
animadversion  in  quarters  self-considered  authori- 
tative ;  but  the  literary  Inquisition,  like  its  religious 
prototype,  will  soon  be  a  thing  of  the  past,  and,  in 
the  meanwhile,  I  am  fortunately  not  alone  in  refusing 
to  accept  all  literary  religions  merely  because  they 
are  based  on  good  historical  evidence,  and  possess 
quasi-miraculous  pretensions.  At  the  same  time,  I 
have  quite  as  great  a  distrust  of  my  own  discernment 
as  of  that  of  any  of  my  contemporaries.  I  simply  put 
down  my  impressions  for  what  they  are  worth,  and 
leave  the  rest  to  the  common-sense  of  the  reading 
public  in  general. 

R.  B. 

LONDON,  October,  1886. 


Dedication. 
To  THE   QUARTERLY   REVIEWER. 

"Ave  Ciesar,  te  saluto  tnoritttnttn." 

SIR,—  Permit  me  to  inscribe  these  Essays  to  you,  as  a  slight  ex- 
pression of  the  estimation  in  which  I  hold  you.  if  you  survive  long 
enough  to  read  them  (for  the  booksellers  report  that  you  are  fast 
sinking,  with  a  circulation  so  languid  as  to  be  hardly  perceptible  in 
the  pulsation)  they  may  perhaps  do  you  a  little  good  ;  at  any  rate, 
they  will  so  far  gratify  and  serve  you  as  to  remind  the  world  of  your 
existence  ;  and  when  you  are  dead  and  buried,  they  may  perhaps 
help  to  preserve  your  name  from  unmerited  oblivion. 

I  know  that  you  have  many  enemies,  who  rejoice  at  your  de- 
cadence and  downfall.  I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind,  for  I  hold 
you  have  clone  good  public  service  by  bringing  pedantic  criticism  into 
discredit.  When  you  were  young  and  strong  and  clever,  you  had  the 
courage  of  your  opinions,  and  cordially  hating  every  form  of  literary 
revolt,  you  served  the  cause  of  retrogression  with  no  little  success. 
Later  on,  even,  your  very  audacity  in  evil-doing  made  you  amusing. 
But  that  is  all  over  now.  Your  time  has  come,  and  in  your  last  sick- 
ness you  have  this  one  consolation  —  that  you  have  been  evenly  and 
triumphantly  malicious,  thoroughly  and  roundly  unintelligent,  from  the 
first  to  the  last  of  your  career.  You  have  never  said  a  generous  word 
to  help  a  rising  reputation  ;  you  have  never  failed  to  crawl  obsequiously 
on  the  ground  before  every  form  of  mediocrity.  You  have  seen  a 
poetaster  in  Mr.  Tennyson,  and  a  brilliant  poet  in  the  writer  of  the 
"  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome."  You  have  hated  progress,  derided  origin- 
ality, insulted  every  honest  spirit  of  your  period.  It  may  comfort  you 
a  little  on  your  deathbed,  to  know  that  even  your  opponents  admit 
your  consistency. 

It  is  sad  to  reflect  that  the  doom  of  dotage  has  fallen  upon  a  spirit 
that  once  seemed  so  playful.  The  day  appears  to  have  passed  when 
public  interest  could  be  awakened  by  the  appearance  of  some  half- 
dozen  ill-natured  pamphlets  in  a  paper  cover,  or  by  the  phenomenon  of 
an  antiquated  literary  watchman  rushing  out  into  publicity,  months 
after  the  henroost  is  robbed  or  the  house  burnt  down,  with  cries  of 
"  fox  !  "  and  "  fire  !  "  The  spitefulness  you  once  expanded  into  a  long 
article,  is  now  concentrated  by  your  successors  into  half  a  newspaper 
column.  You  affected  to  be  scholarly  ;  they  pretend  only  to  be  plain- 
spoken.  Other  times,  other  manners.  When  I  read  the  journals  which 
have  superseded  you,  I  almost  regret  your  extinction.  Be  comforted, 
however,  by  the  assurance  that  no  critic  of  the  future  will  ever  surpass 
you  in  the  sincerity  of  his  endeavours  to  promote  the  science  of  mis- 
construction and  the  art  of  nepotism,  or  exhibit  a  more  splendid  record 
of  literary  mistakes. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  Servant, 

ROBERT  BUCHANAN. 


DOX,  January,  1887. 


CONTENTS. 


FROM  ^SCHYLUS  TO  VICTOR  HUGO  : 

i.  PROMETHEUS i 

n.  GILLIATT 10 

III.   AESCHYLUS 20 

iv.  THE  ONE  GOD 29 

v.  VICTOR  HUGO 32 

vi.  THE  PROMETHEAN  MYTH 40 

vn.  SUMMARY 48 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE: 

i.  THE  AMOURS 54 

n.  GOETHE'S  TORYISM 69 

in.  SOURCES  OF  AGITATION 83 

A  NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS 96 

FREE  THOUGHT  IN  AMERICA: 

i.  ROBERT  INGERSOLL 135 

n.  OCTAVIUS  FROTHINGHAM 140 

in.  THE  HOPE  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE   ,       .       .148 


x  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

A  NOTE  ON  DANTE  ROSSETTI       ....  152 

THOMAS    LOVE    PEACOCK;    A    PERSONAL    RE- 
MINISCENCE        162 

SYDNEY    DOBELL,    AND     THE    "  SPASMODIC 

SCHOOL";    A  SOUVENIR 185 

THE  IRISH  "NATIONAL"  POET     ....  204 

HEINE  IN  A  COURT  SUIT 210 

A  TALK  WITH  GEORGE  ELIOT       ....  218 

THE   LITERATURE   OF   SPIRITUALISM;  "POST 

MORTEM"  FICTION 227 

THE  MODERN  STAGE  : 

i.  NOTES  IN  1876 239 

n.  A  NOTE  IN  1886 281 

in.  THE  DRAMA  AND  THE  CENSOR        .       .       .  297 

FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM  : 

i.  A  NOTE  ON  EMILE  ZOLA 303 

w  n.  CHARLES  READE  ;  A  SOUVENIR       .        .       .  308 

v_  in.  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  LIFE 314 

iv.  EPICTETUS 322 

v.  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  THE  PRINTER'S 

DEVIL 330 

vi.  "L'ExiLEE"  IN  ENGLISH 333 

vii.  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  STAGE        .        .       .  338 
viii.  THE  AMERICAN  SOCRATES        .       .       .       .341 


CONTENTS.  xi 

PACK 

FROM    POPE   TO   TENNYSON 347 

A   LAST    LOOK   ROUND  : 

i 

i.  CIRCUMSPICE 359 

II.    FIRST,   HEAR  THE   CARDINAL       .  .  .          .361 

in.  THE  ATTITUDE  OF  SCIENCE      .       .       .       .365 
iv.  MINOR  RESULTS  AND  INFLUENCES   .       .       .370 

v.  THE  NEW  GIRONDE 374 

vi.  THE  OUTCOME  IN  SOCIETY       .       .       .       .377 
vii.  CONCLUSION 382 


LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 


FROM  /ESCHYLUS  TO  VICTOR    HUGO. 

"  Look  on  this  picture )  and  on  this" 
I. 

PROMETHEUS. 

THE  scene  is  Mount  Caucasus,  a  craggy  desert,  silent, 
inaccessible ;  the  clouds  come  and  go  silently  above, 
the  Euxine  glimmers  faintly  far  away.  All  the  eye 
beholds  is  sombre,  terrible,  colossal,  shadowed  with 
the  mystery  of  some  awful  event.  Three  gigantic 
Shapes  rise,  leading  a  fourth  in  chains.  The  first  is 
the  god  Hephcestos,  accompanied  by  two  formless 
and  awful  figures,  Kratos  and  Bia.*  He  whom  they 
lead  is  Prometheus,  called  the  Fire-bringer,  because 
he  has  brought  fire  to  men,  and  thus  incurred  the 
wrath  and  avenging  hate  of  Zeus,  the  "  new  tyrant " 
of  Olympus.  He  is  silent,  while  Kratos  speaks. 
"  Bind  this  crafty  one  to  these  rocks,  and  so  fulfil 
the  behests  of  the  Father."  Reluctantly,  tenderly, 

*  Generally,  with  an  unpleasant  allegorical  flavour,  translated 
"  Strength  "  and  "  Force  ; "  but  they  are  entities,  not  abstrac- 
tions, and  it  would  be  as  reasonable  to  introduce  Prometheus 
simply  as  "  Foresight,"  or  "  Forethought." 


2  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

as  beseems  a  god,  Hephoestos  performs  his  duty, 
uttering  at  the  same  time  a  prophecy  of  almost 
inconceivable  suffering. 

And  thou  shalt  here  behold 
Nor  face  nor  form  of  any  living  man, 
But  scorching  in  the  fiery  breath  o'  the  sun, 
Shalt  lose  thy  skin's  fair  bloom  ;  and  thou  shalt  joy 
To  see  the  spangled  night  devour  the  day, 
And  yet  again  to  see  the  sun  return 
Scattering  the  dews  of  dawn  ;  and  evermore 
The  ever-present  ill  shall  crush  thee  down. 

The  crucifixion  is  complete ;  arm?,  legs,  ribs, 
every  joint  and  thew,  are  fast  bound,  and  to  com- 
plete all,  the  sharp  tooth  of  the  adamantine  wedge 
is  driven  right  through  the  Titan's  chest.  At  last  the 
servants  of  Zeus  withdraw,  leaving  the  sufferer  alone 
with  Nature ;  and  now,  but  not  till  now,  the  pent-up 
agony  of  his  heart  bursts  forth  in  one  great  wail,  one 
passionate  appeal  of  immortal  pain  :  "  O  holy  ether, 
and  swift-winged  winds,  O  springs  of  rivers  and  in- 
numerable laughter  of  the  ocean  waves,  O  earth, 
mother  of  all — you  I  invoke,  and  the  all-beholding 
circle  of  the  sun."  This,  in  the  most  wonderful  of 
untranslatable  iambics,  followed  by  a  scream  of  indig- 
nant anapaests  equally  untranslatable :  "  O  see  by 
what  pitiful  bonds  worn  away,  I  shall  wrestle  through 
aeons  of  pain  \"  His  call  is  quickly  answered.  A 
music  and  odour  are  blown  to  him  from  the  far-off 
sea,  and  soon  the  air  trembles  with  the  stir  of  won- 
derful wings.  The  Chorus  rises — beautiful  ocean 
spirits  hovering  over  him  with  soft  and  soothing  song. 
As  they  float  above  him,  fixing  their  gentle  eyes  on 
the  lineaments  of  his  sorrowful  countenance,  he  tells 
them  who  and  what  he  is,  his  story,  and  the  story  of 
his  offence  against  Zeus. 

When    confusion  and  anarchy  arose   among  the 


FROM  sESCHYLUS   TO   VICTOR  IICGO.  3 

god.%  some   wanting   to   depose   Kronos   that   Zeus 
might  reign,  others  striving  that  Zeus   might   n 
reign,  Prometheus  was  the  only  Titan  who  stood  on 
Zeus's  side  ;  and  by  his  help  Zeus  conquered. 

But  this  disease  exists  in  sovereignty, 
Never  to  trust  one's  friends. 

No  sooner  was  Zeus  seated  on  the  ancestral  throne, 
than  he  began  to  persecute  the  race  of  men,  with  a 
view  to  their  utter  annihilation  and  the  creation  of  a 
new  order  of  creatures.  But  Prometheus  interposed 
on  behalf  of  humanity ;  firstly,  by  teaching  men  to 
be  less  fearful  of  the  supernatural,  to  cease,  in  other 
words,  from  "dwelling  on  their  doom;"  and  secondly, 
by  teaching  them  the  use  of  fire,  parent  of  innume- 
rable arts.  The  Titan  has  arrived  at  this  point  of  his 
narration,  when  the  Chorus  alight  on  the  ground, 
surrounding  him,  and  simultaneously  Okeanos  their, 
father  arrives,  riding  on  a  gryphon.  The  ancient  sea- 
god  comes  to  proffer  counsel,  which  is  gloomily 
received,  for  he  recommends  a  certain  amount  of 
submission  to  the  powers  that  be.  He  will  himself, 
he  suggests,  intercede  with  Zeus.  For  reply,  Prome- 
theus reminds  him  of  the  fate  of  the  other  Titans — 
Atlas  and  Typhon  : 

And  by  the  fortunes  of  my  brother  Atlas 
My  soul  is  troubled  ; — he  who  stands  i'  the  west 
Upbearing  on  his  shoulders  silently 
A  burden  borne  not  easily  by  arms, 
The  pillar  of  the  heaven  and  of  the  earth. 
And  troubled  was  my  soul  when  I  beheld 
The  earth-born  dweller  in  Sicilian  caves, 
The  hundred-headed  Typhon,  fierce  as  fire, 
Crushed  down  ;  for  he,  the  foe  of  all  the  gods, 
Rose  hissing  horror  with  terrific  jaws, 
And  from  his  eyes  a  gorgon  fury  glared, 
Threat'ning  red  havoc  on  the  rule  of  Zeus. 
But  on  his  head  flashed  Zeus's  fiery  levin, 

B    2 


4  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

The  burning  and  unsleeping  thunderbolt, 
Which  clave  him  even  as  he  threatened. 
Smit  to  the  vitals,  to  a  cinder  burned, 
His  force  devoured  by  lightning,  prone  he  fell  ,- 
And  now  a  corse  effete,  outstretch'd  he  lies 
Close  to  that  ocean  strait  prest  down  between 
The  leaden  weights  of  Aetna  ;  and  Hephcestos 
Forgeth  the  liquid  mass  of  glowing  flame, 
Seated  above  him  on  the  mountain  heights, 
Whence  in  the  time  hereafter  shall  outspring 
Rivers  of  flame  with  fiery  mouths  devouring 
The  furrow'd  fields  of  fruitful  Sicily.* 

Finding  his  task  hopeless,  Okeanos  withdraws.  The 
Chorus  surround  the  Titan,  uttering  music  of  infinite 
tenderness.  His  voice  trembles  as  he  tells  them  of 
his  gentle  deeds,  his  love  for  humanity.  It  was  not 
enough  to  give  men  fire ;  he  gave  them  living  souls. 
Before  his  beneficence,  they  had  been  as  "  phantoms 
seen  in  dreams  "  (ovfipdraw  dXiyKiot  jzop<£atcn).  They  dragged 
their  weary  lives  along.  Houses  they  had  none 
whether  of  wood  or  stone,  but  they  dwelt,  numerous 
as  gnats,  in  the  sunless  hearts  of  caverns ;  and  they 
knew  not  how  to  distinguish  the  seasons,  until  Prome- 
theus instructed  them  in  the  risings  and  the  settings 
of  the  stars.  He  then  taught  them  Number  (apifyioi/), 
and  the  arrangement  of  letters  (ypa^ar^v  a-wOeo-us),  and 
Memory,  handmaid  and  Mother  of  the  Muses.  Nor 
was  this  all.  He  instructed  them  in  horse-taming 
and  horsemanship,  and  in  navigation  of  the  ocean  ; 
what  medicines  to  use  in  sickness,  where  to  find,  and 
how  to  combine  them  ;  how  to  divine  auguries  and 
omens,  both  ordinary  and  extraordinary  ;  and  how, 
delving  in  the  deep  earth,  to  discover  the  precious 
metals.  He  concludes — 

Summed  in  one  little  sentence  hear  the  truth, 
All  arts  to  mortals  from  Prometheus  came ! 

*  This  and  the  other  renderings  in  the  text  are  original.— R.  B. 


FROM  .-ESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.  5 

The  dialogue  now  touches  on  divine  Mysteries.  Pro- 
metheus prophesies.  After  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  years,  he  is  to  find  a  deliverer.  The  thing  is  fated, 
and  even  Zeus  is  the  creature  of  fate.  "  What,  then, 
shall  be  the  fate  of  Zeus  ?"  ask  the  Okeanides ;  but 
Prometheus  refuses  to  answer,  the  time  being  not  yet 
ripe.  An  unconscious  answer  comes,  however,  through 
a  sudden  apparition.  lo,  in  the  shape  of  a  white 
heifer,  enters,  rolling  her  wild  eyes  round  and  wailing 
loudly.  In  a  frantic  song,  she  bewails  her  miserable 
fate,  and  calls  upon  Zeus  to  pity  her.  She  is  still 
moaning,  when  Prometheus  utters  her  name — "  lo, 
daughter  of  Inachos,  who  filled  the  heart  of  Zeus 
with  love,  and  who  is  now,  through  the  hate  of  Here", 
driven  from  land  to  land."  Presently,  while  her  soul 
is  soothed  for  a  time  by  the  sympathy  of  Prometheus 
and  the  Maidens,  she  tells  the  whole  story  of  the 
divine  love  and  persecution. 


But  now  in  clear  narration  you  shall  know 

All  of  these  things  ye  crave  ;  but  ah,  I  grieve 

Ev'n  while  of  that  same  heaven-sent  storm  1  tell, 

And  of  the  cruel  changing  of  my  form, 

The  way  it  came  upon  me  miserable  ! 

For  ever  thronging  in  my  virgin  bovvers 

Came  nightly  dreams  with  smooth  and  honeyed  words 

Beguiling  me  :  "  O  maiden,  triply  blest, 

Why  linger  on  in  cold  virginity 

When  most  exalted  wedlock  waits  for  thee  ! 

For  shafts  of  love  outshooting  from  thine  eyes 

Are  burning  in  the  breast  of  highest  Zeus, 

Who  now  would  mingle  with  thee  amorously. 

Wherefore,  O  child,  disdain  not  Zeus's  bed, 

But  hie  thee  forth  to  Lerna's  deep  green  mead, 

Where  feed  thy  father's  oxen,  flocks  and  herds, 

That  so  the  Eye  Divine  from  its  desire 

At  last  may  cease."     At  voices  such  as  these 

I  wretched  trembled  nightly,  t:ll  at  last 

I  dared  to  whisper  in  my  father's  ears 

My  visions.     Then  did  he  send  messengers 

To  Pytho  and  Dodona  frequently, 


6  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Seeking  to  know  how  best  to  please  the  gods 
In  words  or  deeds  ;  and  ever  they  returned 
With  numberless  ambiguous  oracles, 
Most  dim  of  meaning  and  most  dark  to  read. 
At  last  there  came  a  clearer  oracle 
Charging  upon  my  father  Inachos 
To  thrust  me  from  his  threshold  and  his  land 
That  I  might  wander  homeless,  desolate, 
On  the  remotest  limits  of  the  earth  ; 
And  threatening  if  he  failed  in  this  dark  deed, 
That  fiery  lightnings  should  be  sent  from  Zeus 
To  sweep  away  the  remnant  of  his  race. 
So,  overawed  by  Loxias'  oracle 
Unwilling  he  drave  me  unwilling  too 
Out  of  his  house,  since  Zeus's  cruel  curb 
Constrained  him  to  this  deed  in  love's  despite. 
Then  suddenly  my  senses  and  my  shape 
Became  transformed,  and  even  as  ye  behold, 
Horned  as  any  beast  and  driven  on 
By  the  fierce  pricks  of  the  sharp  stinging  fly, 
With  maniac  leaps  I  rushed  until  I  came 
To  the  soft  stream  Kerchneian  and  the  fount 
Of  Lerna.     And  the  Herdsman  born  of  earth, 
The  fierce  and  headstrong  Argus,  followed  me, 
Watching  my  track  with  eyes  innumerable. 
Him  sudden  accident  surprised  and  slew, 
But  I  abide,  by  maddening  pangs  impelled 
From  region  into  region  of  the  earth. 

The  Okeanides  utter  their  pity  in  loud  wails.  Then 
Prometheus  describes  to  lo  the  whole  of  her  future 
fortune ;  and  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  prophetic 
powers,  he  follows  with  a  recital  of  her  wanderings 
past,  describing  point  by  point,  and  picture  by 
picture,  the  whole  extent  of  her  toilsome  journey. 
Midway  in  his  recital,  he  comes  to  a  more  explicit 
prophesy  concerning  the  fall  of  Zeus.  A  day  shall 
come  when  a  child  of  Zeus,  mightier  than  himself,  as 
Zeus  was  mightier  than  Kronos,  shall  hurl  him  down 
from  heaven  ;  before  or  about  the  occurrence  of  this 
event,  a  child  of  lo,  the  third  generation  after  her, 
shall  release  Prometheus  from  his  bonds.  Not  to  be 
misunderstood  by  too  dark  an  augury,  the  Titan 


FROM  sESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.          7 

concludes  by  recurring  to  the  end  of  lo's  wanderings 
and  the  birth  of  the  Deliverer  : — 

Remotest  of  the  land,  a  City  stands, 

Canopus,  at  the  very  mouth  of  Nile  ; 

There  verily  shall  Zeus  restore  thy  soul 

Smoothing  thee  only  with  his  outstretched  hand, 

Touching,  not  terrifying  thee  ;  and  lo  ! 

Of  that  same  touch  thou  shall  conceive  and  bear 

The  dark-skinned  Epaphos,  "Touch-born  ;  "  and  he 

Shall  gather  in  the  fruit  of  every  land 

Whose  fields  are  watered  by  broad-bosom'd  Nile. 

There  in  the  generation  fifth  from  him 

Shall  fifty  children  come  of  female  seed, 

And  these  against  their  will  shall  journey  back 

To  Argos,  flying  nuptials  with  their  kin, 

These  kin  their  cousins  ;  and  these  last,  as  kites 

Not  lingering  long  behind  the  doves  they  seek, 

Shall  come  pursuing  evil  marriages, 

But  God  shall  grudge  to  yield  unto  their  arms 

The  bodies  of  the  virgins.     And  at  last 

In  bloody  woman-watches  of  the  night, 

Those  men  shall  perish,  stab'd  and  smit  to  death, 

Darkly,  within  the  land  Pelasgian  ; 

For  by  his  bride  shall  every  husband  die, 

Staining  with  his  red  blood  the  two-edged  sword. 

But  love  shall  soften  one  of  those  fierce  maids, 

And  trembling,  hesitating,  choosing  rather 

To  be  deemed  weak  than  to  turn  murderess, 

This  one  shall  spare  the  sharer  of  her  bed  ; 

And  from  her  seed  shall  spring  the  royal  race 

At  Argos.     Long  and  tedious  'twere  to  tell 

These  things  at  length  and  clearly  ;  but  i'  the  end, 

Of  this  same  seed  a  hero  shall  be  born 

Mighty  to  bend  the  bow  and  hurl  the  dart, 

And  he  it  is  who  from  my  sufferings 

At  last  shall  set  me  free  !     This  oracle 

The  Titan  Themis,  my  ancestral  mother, 

Rehearsed  unto  me  darkly  long  ago  ; 

But  how  and  when  the  thing  shall  come  to  pass 

Tedious  it  were  to  tell,  tedious  to  hear, 

Nor  could  ye  gain  at  all  by  hearkening. 

As  he  ceases,  lo  bursts  into  renewed  lamentations, 
and  stung*  again  by  her  grief,  rushes  onward  down 

*  It  is  rather  puerile  to  render  the  oiovpos  of  v.  567  and  880 
literally,  as  most  of  our  translators  do,  as  if  this  oi<rrpos  were 


8  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  mountain  side.  In  a  low  monotonous  song,  the 
Okeanides  sing,  while  Prometheus  falls  into  a  gloomy 
trance  ;  awakening  from  which,  with  a  bitter  smile, 
he  repeats  his  awful  threats  against  the  King  of 
Heaven.  His  words  are  wrapt  in  mystic  darkness, 
trenchant  and  terrible  though  they  be.  One  point  is 
certain—  Zeus  is  to  fall.  The  Okeanides,  again  sur- 
rounding him,  look  on  him  sadly,  for  the  frightful 
power  of  the  Deity  has  terrified  them,  and  they 
regard  the  Titan,  still  with  the  old  pity,  but  with  a 
new  despair.  Their  terror  and  submission  irritates 
him  anew,  and  he  exclaims  : 

Worship  then,  flatter  him,  the  King  of  the  Hour  ! 
For  me,  I  care  for  Zeus,  yea  less  than  nought. 
Let  him  abide  this  little  while,  and  rule 
Even  as  he  pleases,  —  long  he  shall  not  rule 
O'er  the  immortal  gods  ! 

As  he  speaks,  he  beholds,  brightly  approaching,  the 
god  Hermes.  The  terrible  threat  has  been  heard  in 
Olympus,  and  the  messenger  of  Zeus  has  been  sent 
to  demand,  in  no  measured  language,  the  full  ex- 
planation of  when  and  by  whom  Zeus  is  to  be  over- 
thrown. In  the  angry  scene  that  follows,  Prometheus 
still  preserves  his  dignity,  coldly  refusing  to  gratify 
his  persecutor  with  one  syllable  of  the  awful  truth, 
but  still  defying  him  to  do  his  worst.  That  worst  is 
soon  to  come.  Horror  is  to  be  heaped  on  horror, 
torture  on  torture.  Even  as  Hermes  speaks,  the 
earth  begins  to  tremble,  the  heavens  to  flash  fire. 


the  o£uorojiof  /xvo)^  of  v.  674.  Still  more  ridiculous  does  it 
seem  to  conceive  tli.it  the  Spectre  of  Argus  of  which  lo  raves 
in  v.  568  was  actually  present  on  the  stage.  Professor  Plump- 
tree,  in  his  excellent  translation,  falls  into  this  error  of  stage 
direction  —  "  Enter  lo,"  etc.,  followed  by  the  Spectre  of  Argus  — 
as  if  he  were  glaring  in  the  background,  like  Banquo's  ghost, 
and  rolling  his  hundred  eyes  to  affright  the  groundlings. 


FROM  AESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.          9 

While  the  Okcanides  cower  and  moan,  Hermes  with- 
draws, and  on  the  Titan's  head  falls  the  full  thunder- 
bolt of  Zeus.  To  the  very  last  the  mighty  voice  is 
heard  intoning : 

Yea,  now,  in  very  deed, 

No  longer  only  in  word, 

The  earth  is  shaken  and  stirr'cl, 

The  fiery  levin  is  freed. 

The  thunder  rolleth  by, 

Storms  whirl  the  dust  on  high. 

Downward  with  madden'd  motion 

The  mighty  whirlwinds  leap, 

The  sky  is  blent  with  the  ocean, 

And  deep  is  mingled  with  deep. 

Such  is  the  horror  huiTd 

From  Zeus's  terrible  hand, 

In  dark  confusion  whirl'd 

I  tremble  and  shake,  yet  stand. 

O  holy  Mother,  see; 

O  all-encircling  air, 

Light  of  all  things  that  be, 

Behold  what  wrongs  I  bear  ! 

With  the  immortal  appeal,  the  voice  ceases ;  all  is 
silence  and  darkness. 

Such  is  a  brief  sketch  of  the  "Prometheus  Bound" 
of  ^schylus,  a  work  so  familiar  to  students  that  a 
detailed  description  of  it  would  be  superfluous,  were 
such  a  description  not  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
purpose  of  the  comparisons  to  be  instituted  in  the 
present  article.  This  immortal  piece  bears  the  same 
relation  to  tragedy  that  the  "  Laocoon "  does  to 
sculpture ;  it  is  absolutely  solitary  and  supremely 
great.*  In  the  depth  and  infinity  of  its  suggestions, 


*  Thirty  pages  of  close  print  would  contain  this  masterpiece. 
It  is  about  as  long  as  a  single  book  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  and 
not  very  much  longer  than  Mr.  Tennyson's  "Enoch  Arden." 
The  whole  trilogy,  of  which  it  was  a  part,  could  have  been 
included  in  the  i.p.u:e  of  one  of  the  volumes  of  an  ordinary 
three  volume  novel ! 


io  A   LOOK  POUND  LITERATURE. 

it  is  even  more  pregnant  now  than  it  was  to  the  con- 
temporaries of  its  author ;  every  century  adds  to  its 
significance,  every  literary  remove  heightens  its 
grandeur.  It  has  no  equal  because  it  has  no  rival. 
It  deals  with  shapes  so  colossal,  with  ideas  so  sublime, 
that  we  still  tremble  before  them  in  wonder  akin  to- 
superstition.  If  the  Bible  overshadows  us  like  a  cloud,. 
the  Prometheus  overawes  us  like  a  mountain.  Its 
peaks  touch  the  stars,  its  base  is  rooted  deep  in 
human  soil ;  wind,  rain,  and  snow  abide  upon  it,  and 
mystery  dwells  upon  it ;  it  stirs  with  the  blind  motion 
of  supernatural  powers — Zeus  slipping  like  an  ava- 
lanche to  his  doom,  the  Titan  towering  far  above  in 
the  beauty  of  unimaginable  power.  A  Voice  comes 
from  it,  with  such  music  as  shall  be  never  heard 
again,  for  "  that  large  utterance  of  the  early  gods  "' 
is  dead  for  ever. 


II. 
GILLIATT. 

I  HAVE  given  one  picture.      Let  me  turn  now  to  the 
other. 

The  scene  is  scarcely  less  wild  and  desolate  than 
was  the  Scythian  Caucasus.  It  is  a  lonely  reef  of 
rocks  in  the  midst  of  the  ocoan ;  nothing  is  seen 
but  the  cloud,  rock,  and  the  water,  no  sound  is  heard 
save  the  sound  of  sea-birds,  the  plash  of  the  silent 
sea.  Suddenly  the  eye  becomes  conscious  of  two 
things  that  it  had  not  seen  before — of  a  large  vessel, 


sESCIIYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         n 

wrecked  and  sucked  up  between  two  mighty  masses 
of  rock,  where  it  hangs  suspended,  and  of  a  sol 
figure  which  stands  behind  it,  looking  upward — the 
figure  of  a  man.  This  man,  too,  is  Titanic  ;  so  at 
least  he  seems  in  the  dim  low  light  that  surrounds 
him.  This  form  too  is  in  revolt,  not  against  a  cruel 
and  malignant  Deity,  but  against  those  powers  of 
Nature  which  are  even  more  cruel  and  malignant ; 
and  he  too  will  endeavour  to  conquer,  but  by  active 
resistance,  not  sublime  endurance.  His  work  lies 
before  him.  If,  in  defiance  of  the  elements,  he  can 
detach  that  suspended  wreck  from  its  niche,  piece  it 
again  into  a  goodly  vessel,  set  it  again  afloat  upon 
the  sea,  and  all  this  by  the  unaided  craft  of  his  own 
brain,  and  the  strength  of  his  own  arm,  why  then, 
the  Tyrant  is  conquered,  and  the  human  Spirit  rises 
irresistible  and  supreme.  The  man,  however,  has  a 
lower  end  in  view  —  he  hopes,  by  his  miracle  of 
salvage,  to  win  to  himself  the  love  of  a  woman,  the 
daughter  of  the  man  whose  wealth  has  been  lost  in 
that  missing  vessel.  For  this  being  in  mid-ocean  is 
no  Titan,  no  colossal  comrade  of  gods  and  demigods, 
but  only  a  poor  Toiler  of  the  Sea,  dwelling  in  a  poor 
home  in  the  island  of  Guernsey,  and  earning  his 
subsistence  by  the  work  of  his  own  hands.  "  Tel 
etait  Gilliatt.  Les  filles  le  trouvaient  laid.  II  n'etait 
pas  laid.  II  etait  beau  peut-etre.  II  avait  dans  le 
profil  quelque  chose  d'un  barbare  antique.  Au  repos, 
il  ressemblait  a  une  Dace  de  la  colonne  trajanc."  He 
was  thirty  years  old,  but  he  appeared  five-and- forty ; 
for  he  "wore  the  dark  mask  of  the  wind  and  the 
Gilliatt,  then,  is  here  on  the  Douvres,  a  desolate  reef 
of  rocks  out  in  mid-channel,  resolved  upon  a  work 
which,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  is  impossible — the 
rescue  of  a  steam-ship,  which,  instead  of  sinking  to 


12  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  bottom  as  is  the  usual  fate  of  wrecks,  has  been 
suspended  miraculously  in  mid-air. 

La  coque  dtait  perdue,  la  machine  etait  intacte.  Ces 
hasards  sont  frequents  dans  les  naufrages  comme  dans  les 
incendies.  La  logique  du  ddsastre  nous  e'chappe. 

Les  mats  cassds  e'taient  tombe's,  la  cheminee  n'etait  pas 
meme  ployee  ;  la  grande  plaque  de  fer  qui  supportait  la  meca- 
nique  1'avait  maintenue  ensemble  et  tout  d'une  piece.  Les 
revetements  en  planches  des  tambours  e'taient  disjoints  a  peu 
prcs  comme  les  lames  d'une  persienne  ;  mais  a  travers  leurs 
claires-voies  on  distinguait  les  deux  roues  en  bon  e'tat.  Ouelque 
pales  manquaient. 

Outre  la  machine,  le  grand  cabestan  de  I'arriere  avait 
rdsistd.  II  avait  sa  chaine,  et,  grace  a  son  robuste  emboitenient 
dans  un  cadre  de  madriers,  il  pouvait  rendre  encore  des  ser- 
vices, pourvu  toutefois  que  1'effort  du  tournevire  ne  fit  pas 
fendre  le  plancher.  Le  tablier  du  pont  fle'chissait  presque  sur 
tous  les  points.  Tout  ce  diaphragme  dtait  branlant. 

En  revanche  le  trongon  de  la  coque  engagd  entre  les 
Douvres  tenait  ferme,  nous  1'avons  dit,  et  semblait  solide. 
Cette  conservation  de  la  machine  avait  on  ne  sait  quoi  de 
ddrisoire  et  ajoutait  1'ironie  a  la  catastrophe.  La  sombre  malice 
de  1'inconnu  eclate  quelquefois  dans  ces  especes  de  moqueries 
ameres.  La  machine  etait  sauvde,  ce  qui  ne  Tempechait  point 
d'etre  perdue.  L'Ocdan  la  gardait  pour  la  demolir  a  loisir. 
Jeu  de  chat. 

His  first  care  is  to  find  a  place  of  shelter  for  himself 
while  he  remains  on  the  reef,  and  this  he  at  last  finds 
in  a  sort  of  hole  in  the  rock.  As  he  prepares  his 
lodging,  multitudes  of  sea-birds  hover  above  him. 
"  C'etaient  des  mouettes,  des  goelands,  des  fregates,* 
des  cormorans,  des  mauves,  une  nuee  des  oiseaux  de 
mcr,  etonnes."  A  week  passes  away.  This  first  week 


*  It  is  as  consistent  to  introduce  the  "  frigate-bird  "  here  as  to 
write  of  the  sea-serpent.  The  mistake  is  trifling,  but  it  points 
to  a  general  want  of  veracity,  which  would  be  repelling  in  a 
writer  of  less  genius.  Further  on,  he  describes  a  purely  im- 
possible flight  of  cormorants.  Here  as  elsewhere,  he  writes 
like  a  man  who  has  got  his  notion  of  the  sea  from  books,  and 
had  never  seen  a  sea-bird.  \Vhodoubts  the  genius?  but  it  is 
genius  reckless  of  all  consequences  and  indifferent  to  all 
verification. 


/•7v'(W  AESCHYLUS    TO    VlCTOk   HUGO.         13 

is  employed  in  gathering  together  .ill  the  flotsam  and 
jetsam  of  the  wreck — ropes,  chains,  pieces  of  wood, 
"broken  yards,"  blocks  and  pulleys.  Then — 

A  la  fin  de  la  semaine,  Gilliatt  avait  dans  ce  hangar  de 
granit  tout  1'intbrme  bric-a-brac  de  la  tempete  mis  en  orclrc.  II 
y  avait,  le  coin  des  dcouets  et  le  coin  des  ecoutes  ;  !es  boulines 
nVtnient  point  melees  avec  les  dresses  ;  les  bigots  dtaient 
ranges  selon  la  quantitd  de  trous  qu'ils  avaient ;  les  embou- 
dinures,  soigneusement  ddtachdes  des  organeaux  des  ancres 
brisdes,  dtaient  roulees  en  echeveaux  ;  les  moques,  qui  n'ont 
point  de  rouet,  dtaient  sdparees  des  moufles  ;  les  cabellots, 
les  margouillets,  les  pataras,  les  gabarons,  les  joutereaux,  les 
calebas,  les  galoches,  les  pantoires,  les  oreilles  d'ane,  les  racages, 
les  bosses,  les  boute-hors,  occupaient,  pourvu  qu'ils  ne  fussent 
pas  completement  derigurds  par  1'avarie,  des  compartiments 
difterents ;  toute  la  charpente,  traversins,  piliers,  dpontilles, 
chouquets,  mantelets,  jumelles,  hiloires,  etait  entassde  a  part ; 
chaque  fois  que  cela  avait  etd  possible,  les  planches  des  frag- 
ments de  franc-bord  embouffetd  avaient  etd  rentrdes  les  unes 
dans  les  autres  ;  il  n'y  avait  nulle  confusion  des  garcettes  de  ris 
avec  les  garcettas  de  tournevire,  ni  de  araigndes  avec  les  toudes, 
ni  des  poulies,  ni  des  morceaux  de  virure  avec  les  morceaux  de 
vibord,un  recoin  avait  etc  reserve'  a  une  partie  du  trelingage 
de  la  Durande,  qui  appuyait  les  haubans  de  hune  et  les  gambes 
de  hune.  Chaque  debris  avait  sa  place.  Tout  le  naufrage 
dtait  la,  classe  et  dtiquete.  C'dtait  quelque  chose  comme  le 
chaos  en  magasin. 

These  disjecta  vianbra  were  arranged  in  one  great 
hollow  of  the  crag  which  he  used  as  a  storehouse. 
Another  hollow  close  by  he  determines  to  use  as  a 
forge.  The  preparation  of  the  forge  need  not  be 
described  in  detail,  but  it  is  successfully  accomplished. 
With  forge  and  magazine  all  prepared,  Gilliatt  sets  to 
work  in  earnest,  with  a  "  fierte  de  cyclopc,  maitre  de 
Fair,  de  1'eau,  et  de  feu."  It  is  necessary,  however,  to 
nourish  himself  while  so  doing,  and  he  therefore 
spends  a  certain  portion  of  the  day  in  searching  for 
crabs  and  other  shell-fish.  While  so  doing,  he  pene- 
trates, through  a  narrow  fissure,  into  a  mighty  water- 
cavern  situated  in  the  very  heart  of  the  rocks.  The 
water  therein  is  of  "  molten  emerald  "  (de  I'cmeraudc 


14  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

en  fusioii],  a  cloud  of  delicate  beryl  covers  the 
shadowy  walls  and  overhanging  arches,  pearls  drop 
momently  from  the  long  water-mosses  that  cluster 
overhead,  and  through  all  the  dimness  the  sea 
shudders  like  a  palpitating  heart.  Beautiful  as  this 
cavern  appears,  it  is  fatal.  Empty  of  all  life  as  it 
seems,  it  is  nevertheless  a  habitation.  An  evil  spirit 
dwells  within  it,  a  monstrous  and  horrible  Ocean- 
form.  Of  this  master  of  the  mansion,  Gilliatt,  during 
his  first  visit,  got  only  a  glimpse. 

Tout  a  coup,  h.  quelques  pieds  au-dessous  de  lui,  dans  la 
transparence  charmante  de  cette  eau  qui  e'tait  comme  de  la 
pterrerie  dissoute,  il  apergut  quelque  chose  d'inexprimable. 
Une  esp£ce  de  long  haillon  se  mouvait  dans  1'oscillation  des 
lames.  Ce  haillon  ne  flottait  pas,  il  voguait,  il  avait  un  but,  il 
allait  quelque  part,  il  e'tait  rapide.  Cette  guenille  avait  la  forme 
d'une  marottede  bouffon  avecdes  pointes  ;  ces  pointes,  flasques, 
ondoyaient ;  elle  semblait  couverte  d'une  poussiere  impossible  a 
mouiller.  C'dtait  plus  qu'horrible,  c'e'tait  sale.  II  y  avait  de  la 
chim6re  dans  cette  chose  ;  c'dtait  un  etre,  h.  moins  que  ce  ne  fut 
une  apparence.  Elle  semblait  se  diriger  vers  le  c6td  obscur  de 
la  cave,  et  s'y  enfongait .  Les  dpaisseurs  d'eau  devinrent  som- 
bres  sur  elle.  Cette  silhouette  glissa  et  disparut,  sinistre. 

This  is  Gilliatt's  first  glimpse  of  the  "  Pieuvre,"  or 
Poulp,  a  creature  to  which  gorgons  and  chimeras 
were  trifles,  and  which,  scientifically  speaking,  is  simply 
a  ridiculous  exaggeration  of  the  octopus.  For  the 
time  being,  Gilliatt  withdraws,  attaching  little  im- 
portance to  the  apparition.  By  a  series  of  manoeuvres, 
in  themselves  impossible  from  first  to  last,  he  releases 
the  vessel  from  its  perilous  position,  pieces  it  together, 
fixes  the  engine  again  in  its  proper  place,  and  softly 
deposits  the  whole  in  the  sea  beneath.  It  would  be 
tedious  indeed  to  linger  over  the  details  of  this 
miracle ;  enough  to  say,  the  deed  is  done,  and  all  by 
the  unaided  might  of  one  man.  The  weather  is  calm, 
and  little  more  remains  to  do  but  to  depart  to 


FROM  sESCHYLUS  TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         15 

Guernsey.     The  elements,  however,  have  de-tern, 
not     to     let    Gilliatt    depart    without     a     struggle. 
"L'Abime  se  decidait  a  livrer  bataillc."     It   is    the 
period  of  the  equinox,  and  Nature  is  gathering  her 
powers.     Gilliatt  has  not  long  to  wait.     The  wind  is 
arising — "  le  vent,  c'est  tous  les  vents  ;   toute  cctte 
horde   arrivait;    d'un  cote,   cette  legion — de  1'autre, 
Gilliatt !  "     The  tempest  comes,  the  battle  between 
Man    and  Nature.     Fortunately,  Gilliatt,  at  the  first 
warning   of   danger,    has   fashioned   a   rude   sort   of 
breakwater,  by  which  the  full   force   of  the   sea   is 
broken,  and  the  vessel  preserved   from  destruction. 
Now  roars  and  shrieks  a  tempest  as  awful   as   that 
other  which  Zeus  hurled  upon  the  head  of  Prome- 
theus.    It  is  superfluous  to  repeat  in  detail  how  the 
fight  proceeds,  till  finally  Man  conquers.     For  twenty 
hours  lasts  the  Titanic   strife.     Then   suddenly  the 
heavens   turn    blue,   and    Gilliatt,    overcome   by  his 
efforts,  drops   like   a   stone   and    sleeps.     When    he 
awakens,  all  is  calm,  but  he  is  famishing  for  food. 
Stripping  himself  to  his  "  pantalon,"  and  taking  with 
him  a  large  knife  to  detach  stray  shell-fish,  he  creeps 
down  to  the  nether-caves  seeking  cray-fish  (langoustes) 
and  crabs.    While  in  pursuit  of  a  large  crab,  he  enters 
that  very  cave  which   he   discovered  weeks   before. 
Thrusting  his  hand  into  a  fissure,  he  suddenly  feels 
his  arm  seized.     An  indescribable  horror  seizes  him- 
"  Quelque  chose   qui   etait  mince,  apre,    plat,   glace, 
gluant   et  vivant   venait  de  se  tordre  dans  1'ombre 
autour  de  son   bras   nu.     Cela   lui  montait   vers   la 
poitrine."      As    he    stands    stripped,    tentacle    after 
tentacle  (lanicrc)  slips  round  him,  till  he  is  embraced 
on  every  side,  in  every  limb.     He  shrieks  in  horror. 
"  Brusquement  une  large  viscositd  ronde  et  plate  sortit 
de  dessous  la  crevasse.     C'etait  le  centre  ;   les  cinq 


1 6  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

lanieres  s'y  rattachaient  comme  des  rayons  a  un 
moyen  ;  en  milieu  de  cette  viscosite  il  y  avait  deux 
yeux  qui  regardaient.  Ces  yeux  voyaient  Gilliatt. 
Gilliatt  reconnut  la  Pieuvre."  * 

Now  begins  the  second  combat,  between  Man  and 
the  Execrable.  It  is  quickly  decided  in  Man's  favour, 
and  the  "viscosity,"  with  its  head  hacked  off,  tumbles 
into  the  water,  dead.  Directly  after  his  victory, 
Gilliatt  explores  the  lair  of  his  enemy,  and  finds, 
among  other  horrible  evidences  of  its  predatory  habits, 
an  entire  human  skeleton,  having  around  it  a  brazen 
belt  containing  a  large  sum  of  money  lost  by  the 
owner  of  the  wrecked  vessel.  Fortune  has  indeed 
been  favourable  to  the  mighty  Toiler.  The  vessel 
saved,  a  lost  fortune  discovered,  miracles  of  achieve- 
ment done,  and  mountains  of  difficulty  overcome,  he 
points  the  steamer's  bow  for  Guernsey — "homeward 
ho  !  "  The  rest  of  the  tragedy — for  a  tragedy  it  is 
though  told  in  modern  prose — may  be  given  in  a  few 
words.  The  prize  for  which  he  has  wrought  through- 
out is  not  to  be  his.  Deruchette,  the  dream  of  his 
desire,  loves  incarnate  weakness  in  the  shape  of  a 
Protestant  priest.  For  Gilliatt,  when  he  appears 
before  her  in  all  the  glory  of  his  triumph, — "  tel  qu'il 
etait  sorti,  ce  matin  meme,  de  1'ecueil  Douvres,  en 
haillons,  les  andes  perce"s,  la  barbe  longue,  les  cheveux 
hausses,  les  yeux  brules  et  rouges,  la  face  e"corchee, 
les  poings  sanglants,  les  pieds  nus," — Gilliatt,  thus 

*  "  Pour  croire  k  la  Pieuvre,"  the  author  here  naively 
remarks,  "  il  faut  1'avoir  vue  ! "  Everybody  has  now  seen  the 
Octopus,  which  distinct  anti-social  creature  may  be  taken  as 
the  ''Pieuvre's"  representative.  In  some  Japanese  pictures  of 
.tic  cuttle-fish,  lately  published  in  the  Field,  there  is  a 
parallel  to  Victor  Hugo's  exaggeration.  One  monster  is  de- 
picted embracing  and  overthrowing  a  large  sailing-vessel ;  its 
tentacles  are  as  long  as  the  mast. 


: 


FROM  AESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         17 

returning,  is  simply  an  object  of  horror.  The  father 
may  exclaim  "  c'cst  mon  vrai  gendre,"  but  the  woman 
looks  on  with  sickening  despair.  The  end  of  all  is 
very  sad  ;  for  here  one  misses  that  Titanic  will  which 
overcame  the  tempest,  tore  a  fortune  out  of  the  very 
teeth  of  the  winds,  and  slew  the  Poulp,  or  "  Chimaera." 
Nobly  indeed  does  Gilliatt  resign  Deruchette  to  him 
she  loves,  nobly  does  he  join  their  hands,  concealing 
his  own  ill-fated  passion.  But  his  heart  is  broken. 
As  the  pair  sail  away  from  Guernsey,  Deruchette 
accompanying  her  husband  to  the  far-off  scene  of  his 
gentle  pastoral  labours,  as  they  sit  on  the  deck  of  a 
sailing  vessel  hand  in  hand,  they  pass  close  by  the 
sea-cliffs,  and  standing  out  from  these  a  detached  rock 
in  which  is  a  stone  seat,  called  Gild-Holm-'Ur. 
Now,  at  high  water  this  seat  is  entirely  covered  by 
the  tide,  and  in  this  seat  Gilliatt  sits, — and  the  tide  is 
rising.  With  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  vessel  as  it  glides 
away,  he  sits  awaiting  his  doom.  The  tide  rises  to 
his  waist.  An  hour  passes,  and  it  rises  to  his  neck. 
Slowly  the  vessel  fades  away  on  the  far  horizon  line. 
At  the  moment  it  entirely  disappears  from  view,  the 
head  of  Gilliatt  is  submerged.  "  II  n'y  eut  plus  rien 
que  la  mer."  The  Titan,  then,  is  no  Titan  after  all. 
All  the  glory  of  his  victory,  all  the  beauty  of  his 
victory,  has  ended  in  the  basest  of  all  self-abnegation 
— suicide.  To  the  "  anarchy "  of  Nature  he  was 
equal,  but  he  is  far  too  weak  for  the  "  anarchy  of  the 
human  heart."  He  is  utterly  fallen. 

Such,  then,  is  the  "  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer  "    of 
Victor  Hugo,  a  work  in  many  respects  the  writer's 
asterpiece,  and'  well  known  to  many  who  have  not 
ad  it  by  its  exaggerations  about  the  "pieuvre,"  or 
poulp.      To   convert   this   work    into   a    masterpiece 
worthy  to  rank  with   "  Prometheus "  would  be  im- 

c 


1 8  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

possible,  for  its  form  and  music  alike  belong  to  a 
lower  art ;  but  if  its  imperfections  were  obliterated  by 
the  simple  process  of  reducing  its  bulk  to  one-third 
or  one-fourth,  its  literary  worth  would  be  far  higher 
than  it  is.  It  contains  ideas  and  creations  of  un- 
equalled grandeur — forms  worthy  of  Greek  sculpture 
— a  sublime  certainty  of  power  which  leaves  all  other 
contemporary  fiction  far  behind  indeed — a  colossal 
imagery  which  has  perhaps  not  been  surpassed  since 
^Eschylus  lived  and  died,  and  which  has  certainly  not 
been  rivalled  by  any  poet  but  the  one  who  painted 
the  wondrous  picture  of  Nimrod  in  the  "  Inferno." 
Though  written  in  splendid  prose,  it  is  intrinsically  a 
poem ;  and  because  it  is  a  poem  in  essence,  one 
wishes  it  had  been  a  poem  in  fact.  I  am  not  so 
blind  to  the  wonderful  advantages  of  its  prose  form 
as  to  wish  that  it  had  been  written  in  verse;  that  is 
quite  another  matter;  I  merely  regret  those  portions 
which  owe  their  inspiration  to  Alexander  Dumas, 
just  as  I  regret  those  portions  in  "  Les  Miserables  " 
which  catch  the  inspiration  and  follow  the  style  of 
Eugene  Sue.  These  deductions  made,  the  "Tra- 
vailleurs  de  la  Mer  "  remains  a  marvellous  work  ;  to 
be  read  not  merely  once  but  many  times ;  yet  once 
read,  never  to  be  forgotten.  Despite  its  faults,  it 
approaches  nearer  to  the  yEschylan  ideal  than  any 
other  modern  work  not  written  by  its  author. 

The  preface  to  "  Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer  "  is  as 
follows : 

La  religion,  la  socidtd,  la  nature  ;  telles  sont  les  trois  luttes 
de  1'homme.  Ces  trois  luttes  sont  en  meme  temps  ses  trois 
besoins  ;  il  faut  qu'il  croie,  de  la  le  temple  ;  il  faut  qu'il  crie,  de 
la  la  citd  ;  il  faut  qu'il  vive,  de  la  la  charrue  et  le  navire.  Mais 
ces  trois  solutions  contiennent  trois  guerres.  La  mysterieuse 
difficultd  de  la  vie  sort  de  toutes  les  trois.  L'homme  a  affaire 
a  1'obstacle  sous  la  forme  superstition,  sous  la  forme  prejuge',  et 


FROM  JESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO. 

sous  la  forme  e'le'ment.  Un  triple  anantre  p6se  sur  nous, 
1'anantre  des  dogmes,  1'anantre  des  lois,  1'anantre  des 
choses.  Dans  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  1'auteur  a  de'nonce'  le 
premier  ;  clans  les  MiseVables,  il  a  signal^  le  second  ;  dans  ce 
livre,  il  indique  le  troisitnne. 

A  ces  trois  fatalites  qui  enveloppent  Phomme,  se  mele  la 
fatalite  interieure,  1'anantre  supreme,  le  coeur  humain. 

Whether  or  not  this  idea  is,  as  some  expect,  an  after- 
thougjit  of  the  author,  frequently  over  anxious  to 
fashion  his  works  into  imaginary  unity,  it  is  not  for  me 
to  decide ;  but  if  the  idea  be  admitted  and  found 
penetrating  the  three  works  in  question,  it  simply 
renders  conclusive  the  measureless  despair  of  the 
author's  moral  teaching.  Centuries  upon  centuries 
have  passed  since  ^Eschylus  wrote  his  Promethean 
trilogy,  and  only  the  gloomiest  part  of  that  trilogy 
remains  ;  since  that  masterpiece  was  lost  and  found, 
Christianity  has  been,  with  its  lights  and  its  awful 
shadows ;  not  a  god  of  the  old  mythology  remains, 
not  a  shadow  of  the  lost  superstition  abides  ;  empires 
have  risen  or  fallen  upon  this  truth,  that  Zeus  is  not, 
but  that  Christ,  whether  in  the  flesh  or  the  spirit, 
is  and  shall  be — a  truth  which,  nowadays,  is  as 
much  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Spencer's  teaching  as  of  that 
of  the  late  Mr.  Maurice  ;  and  yet,  for  all  this,  for  all 
the  lapse  of  centuries  and  the  roll  of  opinion,  that 
sculptured  "Prometheus"  remains  a  more  enlightened 
and  enlightening  thing  than  the  figure  of  this  other 
Toiler,  working  in  all  the  illumination  of  the  modern 
"  idea."  If  the  greatest  poet  of  our  generation  has 
read  upon  the  page  of  modern  history  only  this 
one  word  "  avdy<€,"  or  fatality,  and  if  this  miserable 
word  is  the  centre  of  his  creed  and  ours,  then  well 
may  we  wish  that  we,  like  ^Eschylus,  had  been  Pagans, 
4t  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn."  I  shall  endeavour 
to  show,  further  on,  that  the  defects  of  Victor  Hugo 

c  2 


20  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

are  not  necessarily  those  of  his  generation,  and  that, 
for  those  who  read  between  the  lines,  even  his  most 
hopeless  utterances  are  far  removed  from  sceptical 
despair ;  but  his  fault  is,  that  while  his  reason  is  illu- 
minative and  propagandist  to  a  degree,  his  imagina- 
tion, for  reasons  partly  national  and  partly  literary, 
is  to  a  deplorable  extent  retrospective  and  over- 
shadowed with  gloom.  Feuerbach  in  his  darkest 
mood  is  as  cheerful  as  this  poet  in  his  brightest.  He 
preaches  a  breezy  doctrine  of  democracy,  as  if  he  were 
opening  one  of  the  seals  of  an  Apocalypse.  His  ideas 
are  often  divine,  his  creations  are  more  frequently 
devilish.  At  his  highest  he  is  a  dark  angel,  moving 
in  the  shadow  of  his  own  wings  ;  at  his  lowest,  he  is 
a  nightmare.  From  a  literary  point  of  view  even  he 
is  alarming.  Two-thirds  of  his  words  are  about  as 
valuable  as  the  contents  of  the  daily  journals.  The 
remaining  third  is  more  precious  than  any  other 
imaginative  utterance  now  heard  in  Europe,  and  yet, 
though  its  power  of  putting  great  and  vague  ideas 
into  colossal  forms  is  unexampled,  it  contains  a 
philosophy  of  mere  misery,  a  morality  to  be  surpassed 
even  among  the  sweepings  of  those  sophists  Mr.  Grote 
loved  "  not  wisely  but  too  well/' 


III. 
^SCHYLUS. 

LET  us  turn  back  to  ^Eschylus,  and  examine  a 
little  closer  into  his  altitude  as  a  poet  and  his  claims 
as  a  teacher.  Every  one  knows  that  he  remained 
throughout  his  life  what  Victor  Hugo  began  by  being 


FROM  AESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         21 

—an  aristocrat,  a  worshipper  of  the  ancient  order. 
He  was  a  Eupatrid,  a  member  of  the  proud  old 
nobility;  and  he  preserved  to  the  end  the  dignity, 
the  hauteur,  and  the  prejudice  of  his  class.  More 
noteworthy  still  is  the  fact  that  he  was  born  at 
Eleusis.  It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  enter  into 
the  controversy  as  to  whether  or  not  he  was  actually 
"  initiated  "  into  the  Mysteries  ;  certain  it  is  he 
preserved  for  them  a  holy  and  deep-seated  awe,  and 
that  they  had  a  mystic  influence  upon  his  intellect 
and  on  his  style  ;  so  that  even  Aristophanes,  in  the 
"  Frogs,"  makes  him  invoke  Demeter  : 

Afjp.r]T€p  f)  Qptyao-a  rrjv  fp.T)i>  Qpeva, 


eva 


It  would  be  more  to  the  point  to  examine  what 
these  Mysteries  eventually  were,  had  I  leisure  and 
erudition  for  such  an  inquiry  ;  the  truth,  however, 
is  involved  in  hopeless  darkness,  and  scholars  are 
hopelessly  disagreed,  some  seeing  in  the  Mysteries  a 
solemn  and  sublime  preservation  of  primitive  theology, 
while  others  find  in  them  only  Phallic  symbols  and 
debasing  orgies.  With  the  last-named  opinions, 
however,  only  pedants  could  agree.  The  grandeur  of 
the  very  temple  itself,  the  style  of  its  architecture,  the 
solemnity  of  its  surroundings,  were  alone  enough  to 
dispel  merely  debasing  associations;  and  when  we  add 
to  the  testimony  of  ^Eschylus  himself  that  of  such  men 
as  Sophocles  and  Pindar,  we  cannot  but  believe  that  the 
Mysteries,  whatever  some  of  their  external  forms  may 
have  been,  had  a  deep  and  beautiful  meaning,  and  a 
purifying  influence.  This  much  being  conceded,  we 
have  little  or  no  difficulty  in  comprehending  the  right 

*  v.  886,  887. 


22  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

character  of  ^Eschylus  himself.  He  is  a  veritable 
Priest  of  Eleusis,  uttering  his  oracles  in  mighty  verse. 
He  accepts  the  ancient  myths  without  doubt  and 
without  hesitation.  The  overthrow  of  Kronos  by 
Zeus  is  as  truly  a  fact  to  him  as  the  creation  of  the 
world  in  six  days  is  a  fact  to  an  orthodox  English 
bishop.  He  believes  in  the  old  theogony,  and  he 
knows  every  one  of  its  members  as  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic knows  his  saints.  His  faith  is  mighty  within  him. 
To  regard  these  wondrous  shapes  as  mere  symbolism, 
as  mere  abstract  attributes  idealised  into  divine  per- 
sons, to  think  of  Prometheus  as  mere  "  Forethought,"  in 
the  spirit  of  a  didactic  essay  by  a  modern  philologist, 
would  be  as  much  heresy  in  his  eyes  as  to  accept  the 
Bible  simply  as  "  supreme  literature  "  is  heresy  in  the 
eyes  of  the  editor  of  the  Record.  The  order  of  things 
has  been  told  him,  and  by  that  order  he  abides.  But 
the  very  law  of  that  order,  he  perceives,  is  constant 
change.  The  better  displaces  the  worse,  in  heaven  as 
on  earth.  Zeus  has  reigned,  but  Zeus  must  fall. 

Here  a  difficulty  interposes.  It  is  clear  that  the 
poet  uses  the  word  "  Zeus  "  in  two  ways — using  it 
sometimes  to  describe  the  personality  of  the  tyrant 
who  deposed  Kronos  and  tortured  Prometheus;  but 
at  other  times,  and  more  frequently,  to  denote  ( "  in  a 
mystery,"  as  John  Bunyan  would  express  it)  the 
supreme  and  divine  Idea  which,  through  all  human 
and  superhuman  interpositions,  works  for  righteous- 
ness. Nothing  could  be  more  explicit  and  tremen- 
dous in  its  abuse  of  the  Olympian  INDIVIDUAL  than 
the  whole  of  the  "Prometheus."  Zeus  is  the  synonym 
for  everything  that  is  treacherous,  lecherous,  inces- 
tuous, suspicious,  tyrannous,  loveless,  hopeless,  and 
diabolical.  Milton  is  far  kinder  to  the  devil  than 
,/Eschylus  is  to  the  Father — such  a  Father ! — as  con- 


FROM  &SCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.        23 

temptible  in  the  Greek  fragment  as  in  the  lovely 
English  poem  of  Shelley.  There  can  be  no  mistake 
about  it,  and  the  vituperation  is  given  all  round.  But 
who  can  imagine  for  a  moment  that  yEschylus,  in  the 
following  passage  of  the  "  Agamemnon,"  is  singing 
of  the  same  Being  ? 

Zeus,  whoe'er  he  be, 
Whether  that  name  be  pleasing  in  his  ear 

By  which  I  call  him  now  : 
For,  weighing  well  all  other  names,  I  fail, 

When  seeking  from  my  soul 

To  cast  away  all  care, 
To  fathom  any  but  this  name  of  Zeus. 

For  One  who  reigned  of  old, 

Full  of  the  might  of  war, 

Is  fallen,  and  is  no  more  ; 

And  one  who  followed  him 

Hath  fallen  in  his  turn. 
But  Zeus  abides,  and  he  who  woos  him  well 
Shall  surely  reap  the  wisdom  of  the  wise. 

Yea,  Zeus  is  he  whom  we  must  woo  with  prayer, 
And  with  ovations,  would  we  prosper  well — 
He  who  to  wisdom  leads  us,  making  sure 

Sad  teachings  wrought  from  pain  ; 

For  in  the  dead  of  night 
Come  conscience-waking  cares  and  agonies, 
And  mortals  then  against  their  wills  grow  wise. 
Such  grace,  I  trow,  is  shed  by  the  Immortals, 
Seated  above  on  their  eternal  thrones.* 

No,  this  is  not  the  Divine  Tyrant,  but  the  Divine 
Idea  which  has  displaced  him,  and  taken  the  name  of 
which  he  is  unworthy. 


*  Above  is  part  of  the  extraordinary  first  chorus  of  the 
"Agamemnon,"  afterwards  alluded  to  again.  No  attempt  is 
made  to  translate  it  literally  or  rhythmically  ;  it  is  quite  un- 
translatable, and  I  merely  attempt  to  convey  its  spirit.  The 
confusion  of  Zeus  himself  with  the  Sat/ioces  (here,  however, 
translated  "Immortals")  is  an  example  of  the  poet's  per- 
plexing way  of  mingling  modern  Athenian  conceptions  with  the 
old  theogony, 


24  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Again,  in  the  "  Suppliants  "  : — 

Calm,  without  effort,  is  the  work  of  Zeus  : 
Thron'd  loftily,  he  works,  we  know  not  how, 
His  perfect  will. 

Again  in  "  Eumenides  "  : — 

All  things  he  rules,  unwearying,  with  no  toil. 

This  is  the  one  God  that  abides,  though  the  many 
change  and  pass  ;  this  is  the  supreme  Spirit,  far  more 
akin  to  the  r6  'Kp&pcvov  of  Aristotle,  and  the  eternal 
"Ich"  of  Fichte,  than  to  the  colossal  Constitutional 
Monarch  overthrown  by  Demogorgon.  This  more 
resembles  the  "  stream  of  tendency  that  works  for 
righteousness,"  than  the  wicked  Impostor  who  carried 
into  divine  life  the  indecency  of  a  Nero  and  the 
cruelty  of  a  Tiberius.  In  a  word,  the  poet,  half  un- 
consciously, is  intoning  the  music  of  that  monotheism 
which  interpenetrates  all  polytheistic  systems,  and  of 
which  he  is  as  certain  as  Plato  himself.  Zeus,  thus 
conceived,  is  not  merely  "  mighty  of  the  mightiest/' 
as  the  same  poet,  indeed,  calls  him  ;  he  is  the  "  secret 
force  destroying  wrong,  as  water  weareth  stone  ;  "  he 
is  the  everlasting  Principle  by  which  truth  is  vindi- 
cated from  generation  to  generation,  and  through 
which  suffering  becomes  self-compensating  and  di- 
vine ;  he  is  the  Quiet  Waters  that  receive  the  virgin 
corpse  of  lo  in  the  end,  and  he  is  the  Peace  that 
broodeth  like  a  dove  in  heart  of  the  triumphant  Titan. 
But,  far  more  than  this,  he  is  Supreme  Justice,  Lord 
and  Master  of  the  Erinnyes,  ever  urging  them  on  to 
righteous  vengeance,  until  (as  in  the  "Orestes"), 
Nature  is  vindicated,  and  they  drop  to  sleep. 

If,  as  is  believed,  ^Eschylus  designed  the  masks 
for  many  of  his  characters,  as  well  as  assisting  other- 


FROM  AESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         25 

wise  in  the  artistic  and  scenic  decorations ;  and  if 
these  masks  of  bronze  answered,  as  they  must  have 
done,  to  the  tragic  ideas  of  their  creator,  his  heart 
must  often  have  ached  in  their  fashioning.  Well 
might  the  Greek  Theatre  be  formed  on  a  mighty 
scale,  with  the  quiet  heavens  overhead,  figures  of 
superhuman  height  moving  on  the  stage,  masks  of 
mysterious  awe  glimmering  far  away.  No  human 
face  could  have  borne  throughout  a  play  the  fixed 
expression  of  monotonous  pain  of  an  CEdipus,  an 
Orestes,  or,  above  all,  a  Clytemnestra ;  no  living  actor 
could  have  personated  these  characters  in  what  is 
now  known  as  the  natural  style  without  emotion 
bordering  on  madness.  In  assisting  at  their  show, 
we  are  passing,  as  it  were,  under  the  very  shadow  of 
God.  The  infinite  sibilations  of  the  "  Inferno  "  are 
not  more  real  than  the  cries  we  hear  from  those 
brazen  throats  ;  yet  we  take  comfort  from  the  very 
mistiness  and  vagueness  of  the  forms.  Lear's  thin, 
human  cry  tears  our  heart-strings,  but  the  wild  groan  of 
Orestes  comes  to  us  subdued  into  a  prayer.  We 
hide  our  faces  from  the  sight  of  the  "  pretty  princes 
smothered  in  the  Tower/'  from  little  Arthur's  plead- 
ing face  held  up  to  Hubert — 

Must  you  with  hot  irons  burn  out  both  mine  eyes  ? 

This  is  too  common — pitiful ;  we  cannot  bear  it ;  but 
the  slaughter  of  Agamemnon,  and  the  torture  of 
Prometheus,  and  the  murder  of  Cassandra,  and  the 
death  of  Clytemnestra  by  the  fruit  of  her  own  womb, 
all  these  we  can  bear,  because  they  are  less  realities 
than  symbols,  seen  in  a  shrine,  of  natural  laws  vindi- 
cated despite  unnatural  passions,  and  of  the  Divine 
Justice  and  Pity  which  is  ever  awaiting  to  redeem  the 
deeds  of  guilt.  To  read  the  "  Agamemnon  "  or  the 


26  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

"Prometheus"  alone,  is  like  ending  at  the  murder 
scene     in     Macbeth,     or     stopping     at     the     early 
books   of  "Paradise    Lost."      Each  play  bears   the 
same  relation  to  its  group  that  each  act  of  Shake- 
speare bears  to  a  complete  drama.     We  must  read  on 
until  the  end  if  we  wish  to  receive  the  sacrament  of  a 
Greek  Trilogy.      In  the  Orestean  group,  fortunately 
preserved   for   us   intact,  we   get  the  whole   picture 
complete,  with  all  its  issues  and  its  compensations. 
In  the  case  of  the  "  Prometheus,"  we  have  to  guess 
the  beginning  and  the  end  ;  and  fortunately  we  can 
do  so  with  ease  and  pleasure  ;  but  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  we  could  better  spare  three  or  four  of  the 
plays  of  Shakespeare,  or,  better  still,  one  entire  half 
of  the  Elizabethan  dramas,  than  the  lost  "  Prometheus 
Purophoros"  and  "  Prometheus  Luomenos  "  of  ^Eschy- 
lus.     The  loss  of  the  play  last  named,  commonly 
known  as  the  "  Prometheus  Solutus,"  is  simply  in- 
commensurable.    Not  even  the  lovely  lyric  drama  of 
Shelley,  which  we   owe   to  it,  can   make   that   loss 
endurable.     Nay,  for  that  one  lost  masterpiece,  one 
would  freely  exchange  any  existing  masterpiece,  with 
two  exceptions,  King  Lear t  and  the  "  Inferno." 

Only  less  wonderful  than  the  "  Prometheus "  is 
the  "  Agamemnon."  Here,  as  in  the  other,  the  spirit 
is  wrathful,  religious,  and  terrible.  It  is  not  my  pur- 
pose to  recapitulate  its  features,  as  I  did  those  of 
the  "  Prometheus ;  "  such  a  recapitulation  is  unneces- 
sary for  the  purposes  of  this  paper.  In  some  re- 
spects, the  "Agamemnon  "  is  unequalled.  The  first 
chorus  of  Argive  elders  is,  without  any  exception 
whatever,  the  weirdest,  most  wonderful,  soul-over- 
whelming piece  of  melody  to  which  the  human  ear 
ever  listened.  It  is,  even  apart  from  those  solemn 
religious  suggestions  in  which  it  abounds,  a  sacred 


FROM  JESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         27 

oratorio  without  any  parallel  ;  and  delivered  in  the 
Greek  amphitheatre,  with  all  due  pomp  of  accompani- 
ment and  gesture,  it  must  have  been  as  awe-inspiring 
in  its  rapid,  mysterious  imagery,  as  the  very  intona- 
tions of  Eleusis  itself.  Unfortunately,  it  is  unti 
latable.  Other  Greek  choruses  may  be  rendered  with 
a  dim  approach  to  the  reality,  but  this  chorus  il 
simply  impossible  to  render  at  all.  It  has  all  the 
volume  of  the  Psalms  of  David,  with  all  the  music  of 
the  ancient  world.  As  one  reads  it,  one  cannot  help 
believing  that  its  melody  was  found  in'  some  old 
oracle,  which  caught  it  from  the  murmur  of  the 
neighbouring  sea.  It  comes  like  a  conjuration. 

aikivov,  *u\ivov  ewre,  TO  &'  ev  i/ucaro). 

And  no  sooner  has  it  ended,  than  there  rises  up,  \ 
terrible,  crowned,  with  a  mask  fixed  into  one  white 
gleam  of  murderous  resolve,  the  shadowy  figure  of 
Clytemnestra.  But  God,  in  that  deep  music,  ha-; 
been  invoked,  is  with  us,  is  watching,  and  we  do  not 
fear.  That  awful  woman  may  move  on  to  her  revenge 
— the  bath  is  prepared  wherein  the  corse  of  Agamem- 
non will  soon  be  lying — all  will  be  fulfilled  as  has  : 
fated  from  the  beginning  (since  crime  breeds  crime, 
and  of  Agamemnon's  own  sowing  springs  the  bloody 
seed)  ;  but  still,  God  is  with  us,  with  the  spectators  as 
with  the  actors,  and  we  gaze  on.  Thus  fortified,  \ve 
can  bear  even  Cassandra's  piteous  wail,  which  is  soon 
heard  rising  to  the  very  heaven  of  heavens.  For  we 
are  not  met  merely  beholding  a  play  ;  we  are  par- 
taking in  a  holy  ceremony,  by  which  God  will  be 
surely  justified.  Far  different,  here  observe,  is  th 
of  Shakespeare.  He,  too,  wrote  his  "Agamemnon," 
calling  Clytemnestra  Lady  Macbeth,  and  Ae-isthus 
Macbeth,  and  his  work,  far  inferior  as  it  is,  parades 


28  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

these  humanising  touches  which  in  a  purely  divine 
tragedy  are  incidental.  Supreme  pity  is  his  last 
word,  not  supreme  justice  and  religion.  As  we  see 
the  bloody  Thane  staggering  across  the  stage  in 
his  last  infirmity,  crying, 

I  have  lived  long  enough — my  way  of  life 
Has  fallen  into  the  sere,  the  yellow  leaf ; 
And  that  which  should  accompany  old  age, 
As  honour,  love,  obedience,  troops  of  friends, 
I  must  not  look  to  have  ! 

we  almost  forget  his  crimes,  in  the  utterness  of  our 
pity  for  his  poor  humanity.  There  is  pity  too,  but  of 
a  sublimer  sense,  in  the  "  Agamemnon. "  When  in 
the  "  Libation-pourers/'  Clytemnestra  falls  at  her 
son's  feet  seeking  mercy  and  crying, 

I  reared  thee — I  would  fain  grow  old  with  thee  ! 
and  when,  after  slaying  her,  Orestes  cries, 

May  the  Great  Sun,  beholding  all  we  do, 
Bear  witness  for  me,  that  I  justly  wrought 
This  doom  upon  my  mother  ! 

we  are  too  awe-stricken  for  pity.  Fate  is  speaking 
through  the  very  lips  of  the  Avenger,  and  Zeus  is 
approving.  Yet  even  as  we  hear  we  know,  from 
vague  murmurs  of  the  Chorus  and  from  certain  sub- 
lime expressions  of  Orestes  himself,  that  all  is  not  yet 
well,  that  Orestes  has  violated  a  natural  law  even  in 
avenging  his  own  father,  and  that  vengeance  is  not 
man's,  but  God's.  We  do  not  weep,  as  in  Shake- 
speare ;  we  pray.  We  do  not  turn  away  sadly  con- 
scious of  human  problems,  tenderly  stirred  by  human 
voices,  as  we  do  when  we  close  a  play  of  the  great 
feudal  poet ;  we  come  away  as  from  a  Temple,  not 
wholly  comforted,  but  reverent,  and  resolved. 


FROM  AESCHYLUS    TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         29 

IV. 
THE    ONE    GOD. 

THE  great  Greek  masterpieces  owe  no  small  part 
of  their  inconceivable  splendour  as  exercises  of  re- 
ligion to  the  existence  of  the  Chorus.  The  Chorus 
is,  as  it  were,  the  idealised  human  spectator,  ever 
prepared  with  comment  on  events  too  strange  for 
comprehension.  Its  members,  from  their  position 
round  the  Thymele,  midway  between  actors  and 
audience,  are  enabled,  as  the  play  proceeds,  to  give 
expression  to  the  emotions  which  are  disturbing  the 
bosom  of  every  spectator  who  possesses  a  particle  of 
human  nature.  In  a  modern  performance,  we  must 
repress  our  pleasure  and  pain,  no  matter  how  strongly 
they  are  excited.  In  forming  actually  or  in  imagi- 
nation part  of  the  audience  at  a  Greek  play,  we  are 
perpetually  entering  our  fiery  protest  against  iniquity, 
and  calling  aloud  to  God  for  His  retribution.  The 
moment  our  emotion  masters  and  suffocates  us,  the 
Choragus  finds  voice  in  our  name.  Our  human  na- 
ture is  vindicated.  It  is  we  ourselves,  so  to  speak,  no 
mere  person  of  the  drama,  who  conduct  that  fierce 
dialogue  with  the  contemptuous  Aegisthus  at  the 
end  of  the  "Agamemnon."  We  hiss  at,  deride, 
insult,  mock,  and  defy  the  obnoxious  character. 

Thrive  on,  stuff,  gorge  thy  fill,  polluting  right ! 

we  shriek ;  and  when  he  threatens  us,  we  cry 
tauntingly, 

Boast  on,  and  crow — like  a  cock  beside  his  hen  ! 

Our  hootings  and  exclamations  follow  him  as  he 
retires,  led  off  by  Clytemnestra,  and  the  curtain  falls. 


30  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Again  in  the  "  Prometheus "    when  the  Okeanides 
uplift  their  voices  against  the  iniquities  of  the  Olym- 
pian tyrant,  we  are  the  Okeanides.      We  call  aloud, 
that  the  heavens  and  the  earth  may  hear  us, 
\ 

Of  all  the  gods,  what  god  is  there  so  cruel 

That  he  rejoiceth  in  thy  sufferings  ! 

We  cling  around  him,  soothing  and  comforting  him, 
and  even  when  Hermes  threatens  us  with  the  fiery 
levin  if  we  remain,  we  do  not  go.  Nay,  we  are  even 
those  fierce  Erinnyes,  hounding  Orestes  from  land  to 
land — for  our  human  nature  sickens  at  matricide,  and 
we  are  not  appeased  until  we  receive  full  atonement, 
in  utter  contrition  and  devotion  of  sacrifice  ;  then, 
as  the  Eumenides,  our  cries  are  still. 

Thus,  as  I  have  indicated,  the  spectator  of  a 
Greek  play  is  assisting  at  a  religious  service,  in  which 
he  joins  when  the  emotion  masters  him — not  wildly 
and  madly,  but  in  a  solemn  spirit  befitting  the 
tragedy  of  great  human  issues.  He  who  reads  his 
Bible  and  finds  it  holy,  and  yet  can  read  his 
•"  ^Eschylus  "  and  call  it  pagan,  has  much  to  learn  as 
to  what  is  and  what  is  not  edification.  If  Isaiah  and 
Ezekiel  are  prophets,  Prometheus  and  the  rest  are 
prophets  too.  The  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness never  uttered  solemner  warning  to  man  than  do 
the  Argive  Elders  of  the  divine  chorus.  If  the  Lord 
God  of  the  "  Psalms  "  is  terrible  and  overwhelming, 
the  Lord  God  of  the  "  Suppliants  "  is  beautiful  and 

wise  : 

Our  sire  is  He,  creator  of  our  being, 

Monarch  whose  right  hand  worketh  well  His  will, 

Lord  of  our  race  and  ruler  of  our  line, 

In  counsels  deep  recording  ancient  things, 

Planning  and  ordering  all,  the  great  Taskmaster  ! 

It  is  something  also  to  know  that  this  Being,  unlike 


FROM  AESCHYLUS  TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         3' 

that  other  beloved  of  King  David  and  dear  to  the 
Jews,  is  not  to  be  entreated  on  our  side  when  our 
thought  is  of  battles  and  our  sign  is  a  Sword  ;  that 
He  will  not  utterly  annihilate  our  enemies  and  de- 
liver them  into  our  hands,  even  when  those  enemies 
are  Philistines  and  unbelievers  ;  that  He  will  avenge 
crime  and  punish  sin,  even  after  the  lapse  of  a  thou- 
sand years ;  and  yet  withal,  that  He  is  gentle  and 
will  bless  us,  if  we  only  have  the  heart  to  suffer  and 
be  strong.     To  suffer ! — This,  then,  is  the  spirit  of 
Greek  tragedy  in    its  highest  examples  :  the   triple 
''anarchy"  of  Victor    Hugo    attacking    Man  on    all 
sides,  Man    suffering   at   all   points,   yet  above   and 
beyond  all,  the  reality  and  ever-abiding  presence  of 
divine   compensations.     More  than   this,  the  surety 
that  suffering,  though  persistent  and  patience-slaying, 
is  not  eternal — that   only  one  thing   is    Eternal,  the 
Supreme  Idea,  the  Infinite  Pity  and  Justice  of  God. 
Nor  does    it  matter  much  in  partaking  this  tragic 
sacrament,  on    what  God  we  call :   whether  we  are 
addressing  and  thinking  of  the  vovs  of  Anaxagoras, 
Plato's    Idea  of  the    Good,    Aristotle's    irpurov  KIVOW, 
King  David's  Jehovah,  Comte's  Grand   Etre,  or  Mr. 
Spencer's  great  Unknowable,  it  matters  not,  so  long 
as  we  are  agreed   that   this  God  is,  as  Mr.  Arnold 
might  express  it,  the  one  fixed  Law  and  Intelligence 
which  works  for  righteousness.     Two  vital  principles 
are  forced  upon  us — Nemesis  from  without,  Endu- 
rance from  within.     The  victory  of  the  latter  prin- 
ciple over  the  former,  is  the  triumph  of  the  human 
Will. 

Two  thousand  three  hundred  and  forty  years 
have  elapsed  since  the  death  of  <#£schylus,  which 
took  place  two  years  after  the  representation  of  his 
masterpiece,  the  Orestean  Trilogy.  In  that  mighty 


32  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

interval  many  poets  have  arisen,  but  (setting  aside 
Dante,  whose  genius,  however,  was  too  exclusively 
personal  and  lyrical)  not  one  poet,  so  far  as  I  know, 
has  dared  to  take  upon  himself  the  ^Eschylan 
mantle  ;  until,  in  our  own  day,  a  great  genius  has 
so  dared,  with  results  too  extraordinary,  perhaps,  for 
a  hasty  contemporary  estimate.  The  comparison 
may  seem  exaggerated,  especially  in  the  eyes  of 
those  worthies  to  whom  no  fame  is  first-rate  that  is 
not  centuries  removed  in  time,  and  who  simply  can- 
not conceive  that  demigods  were  ever  contemporary. 
It  is  no  exaggeration,  however,  to  say  that  Victor  Hugo 
is  the  ^Eschylus  of  this  generation — the  heir,  doubt- 
less, of  a  meaner  time,  and  the  inheritor  of  a  lower 
art — but  the  prophet,  too,  in  his  turn,  of  miracles  to- 
come. 


V. 
VICTOR    HUGO. 

As  headstrong  as  yEschylus,  and  as  grim  ;  as  solemn 
in  his  presentation  of  archetypal  forms  and  pictures, 
as  musical  sometimes  in  his  conjuration  of  these 
forms  into  life ;  not  one  whit  less  credulous  than  that 
other,  though  he  inherits  all  the  knowledge  of  the 
ages,  all  the  science  of  the  age ;  sceptic,  too,  as  to 
God  the  Constitutional  Monarch,  but  adoring  as  to 
God  the  Infinite  Idea;  a  prophet,  a  poet,  who  has 
never  been  known  to  smile,  scarcely  to  weep,  and 
therefore  master  neither  of  smiles  nor  tears  (which 
were  Shakespeare's  birthright)  ;  physically  resem- 
bling y^Eschylus,  as  any  one  may  see  by  comparing 


FROAf  AESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         33 

the  photograph  of  one  with  the  traditional  likeness 
of  the  other;  morally  and   intellectually  resembling 
him,  to  a  degree  which  suggests  a  transmigration  of 
souls  !     Such,  then,  is  Victor    Hugo,    last   of  those 
sublime  Frenchmen  who  have  been,  ever  since  the 
Encyclopedia,  our  intellectual  spendthrifts,  enriching 
all  Europe  with  ideas,  and  receiving  scanty  gratitude 
in  return.     Even  here  in  England,  where  intellectual 
fashions  are  so  supremely  "  respectable,"  his  genius  is 
admitted,  with  the  qualification  that  it  lacks  sobriety, 
calm,  artistic  finish,  and   that   it    offends   too  often 
against     constitutional     religion     and     conventional 
virtue.     The  British  Matron  reads  him  expurgated, 
and  admits  his  power;  "but,  then,"  she  adds,  "his 
ideas  are  most  alarming,  and  give  me  the  shivers." 
Even  Mr.  George  Lewes,  in  some  respects  an  admir- 
able critic,  reviewed  the  "  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer," 
on    its    first    appearance,    without    enthusiasm,    and 
chiefly  devoted  himself  to  emphasizing  its  exaggera- 
tions.    Again,  he  has  the  misfortune  to  be,  politically 
speaking,  "  red."     He  began  by  singing  paeans  to  the 
Bourbon  ;  but  advancing  step  by  step,  and  book  by 
book,  he  has  ended   by  applauding  the  Commune, 
and  by  adoring  one  king  of  men  who  is  worth  a  thou- 
sand kings  of  peoples — Garibaldi.  His  literary  career 
has  been  peculiar.     Many  years  have  elapsed  since 
his  advent  as  the  leader  of  the  Theatre  Romantique 
filled  the  aged   Goethe  with  horror,  and  led  him  to 
predict  a  poetic  Deluge.    With  De  Vigny  and  Dumas 
for  his  lieutenants,  he  began  a  theatrical  campaign  in 
the  Spanish  fashion,  and   Romanticism  was  a  nine 
days'  wonder.     Brilliant  and  clever  as  his  dramas  are, 
they  are   only  dramas    of  purely  ephemeral  worth. 
The  poet  was  to  find  his  true  tongue  in  the  language 
of  his  own  time,   not  in    the  language  of  Francois 

D 


34  A   LOOK  ROUND   LITERATURE. 

Premier  or  Charles  Quint.  But  in  "  Notre  Dame  de 
Paris,"  a  novel  which  belongs  to  the  romantic  period, 
he  began,  while  still  attitudinising  in  hat  and  feather, 
to  conjure  in  the  name  of  Nature ;  and  there  arose, 
in  answer  to  his  conjuration,  with  the  pet  word 
"  anarchy "  written  on  his  brow,  Quasimodo.  This 
shapeless  Earth-geist,  full  of  all  the  tenderness  and 
passion  of  the  earth,  unbeautiful,  patient,  enduring, 
powerful,  tender,  was  seen  at  war  with  all  those  evil 
forces  which  were  once  named  Religion,  and  by  his 
side  there  blossomed  the  flower  of  revolt,  Esmeralda. 
The  story  is  a  lovely  one,  despite  its  pitiable  gloom- 
almost  approaching  true  tragedy  in  some  of  its  issues  ; 
but  there  has  passed  across  it  the  sickly  breath  of 
Balzac,  and  it  droops  into  third  or  fourth  rank  as 
fiction. 

The  Spectre,  the  Earth-geist,  once  thus  invoked,, 
was  not  soon  to  be  appeased.  He  who,  in  the  spirit 
of  Doctor  Faustus,  calls  up  the  secret  forces  of  the  ele- 
ments, and  compels  them  into  some  attendant  shape, 
has  generally  some  difficulty  in  "laying"  them  again; 
and  Victor  Hugo,  from  the  hour  of  his  creation  of 
Quasimodo,  has  been  at  the  mercy  of  that  type. 
Jean  Valjean,  Gilliatt,  and  the  Laughing  Monster  in 
"THomme  qui  rit,"  are  so  many  repetitions  and 
amplifications  of  Quasimodo,  engaged  at  the  same 
old  hopeless  business — fighting  Zeus,  in  all  his  hor- 
rible forms  and  execrable  disguises.  Nor  is  the  poet 
less  faithful  to  his  own  fragile  type  of  woman.  Cosette, 
Deruchette,  and  Dea  are  merely  pseudonyms  for 
Esmeralda.  And  here  it  may  be  remarked,  in  passing, 
that  Victor  Hugo,  like  nearly  every  modern,  fails 
miserably  as  a  painter  of  female  character.  His 
women,  when  they  are  not  mere  animals,  with  the 
passions  of  brewer's  draymen,  are  so  many  inanities 


FROM  &SCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         35 

washed  in  water-colours.  The  secret  of  their  failure 
is  not  far  to  seek,  lying  as  it  does  in  the  over-strong 
virility  of  the  poet's  imagination.  His  masculine 
conceptions  being  types  of  exaggerated  power,  his 
feminine  conceptions  naturally  become  types  of 
exaggerated  weakness.  They  are  pretty,  they  bloom, 
and  they  die.  Compared  with  the  divine  female 
creations  of  Greek  tragedy,  they  are  as  poor  as  the 
"beauties  of  Byron  "  engraved  in  an  old  Annual.  In 
the  ancient  theatre,  all  the  power  was  not  reserved 
for  man,  nor  all  the  suffering.  Woman,  too,  was  to 
become  sublime  by  bearing  sublime  burthens  ;  woman, 
too,  was  to  rise  supreme  above  the  malignity  and 
cruelty  of  Zeus,  and  to  turn  to  eternal  marble  in  the 
glory  of  her  accomplished  and  triumphant  will.  A 
Niobe  remains  in  stone,  a  thing  of  deathless  woman- 
hood. Electra,  Antigone,  and  Alcestis  also  remain, 
certain  of  their  immortality  as  the  stars  of  heaven ; 
for  of  their  very  womanhood  was  wrought  their 
glory,  and  they  were  as  strong  to  resist  as  Gilliatt 
himself,  though,  unlike  him,  they  did  not  become 
hideous  by  aggression. 

Victor  Hugo,  then,  cannot  paint  women  ;  it  is 
almost  doubtful  whether  he  paints  men  ;  but  for  pro- 
ducing in  colossal  cipher  the  abstract  forms  of  mascu- 
line forces,  he  is  without  a  rival.  He  is  the  Franken- 
stein of  the  democratic  Idea,  the  humaniser  of  the 
wild  elements  of  anarchy ;  and  the  figures  he  uses, 
though  of  human  likeness,  and  full  of  appeals  to  the 
human  soul,  are  simply  superhuman  types  like  those 
of  Greek  tragedy,  elevated  like  them  on  the  cothurnus, 
and  speaking  like  them  through  the  mask.  They 
move  to  and  fro  on  a  mighty  stage,  with  a  back- 
ground of  the  mountains  and  the  sea.  They  contend 
with  monsters  and  with  phantoms.  The  "Pieuvre" 

D  2 


36  A    LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

is  as  horrible,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  the  three 
swan-shaped  Phorkides,  with  only  one  eye  and  tooth 
between  them  all.  The  skeleton  of  Clubin  is  more 
appalling  than  the  ghost  of  Clytemnestra.  The 
Winds  of  the  Douvres  are  as  frightful  as  the  Eume- 
nides.  The  evil  genius  of  "Les  Miserables,"  Thenar- 
dier,  is  more  diabolical  than  the  "  Gorgons,  serpent- 
tressed,  hating  men."  Again,  even  as  to  the  number 
of  performers,  he  never,  at  the  utmost,  exceeds  the 
third  actor.  He  himself  is  the  Choragus,  and  a  very 
bad  Choragus  ;  for  his  eternal  volubility,  though 
seeming  in  the  name  and  interests  of  the  spectator, 
goes  far  to  spoil  the  play.  For  example,  instead  of 
the  mighty  music  from  around  the  Thymele,  we  get 
such  reflections  as  the  following : 

Essayez  de  vous  rendre  compte  de  ce  chaos,  si  enorme  qu'il 
aboutit  au  niveau.  II  est  le  recipient  universel,  reservoir  pour 
les  fecondations,  creuset  pour  les  transformations.  II  amasse, 
puis  disperse  ;  il  accumule,  puis  ensemence  ;  il  devore,  puis 
cree.  II  regoit  tous  les  egouts  de  la  terre,  et  il  les  thesaurise. 
II  est  solide  dans  le  fangeux,  liquide  dans  le  flot,  fluide  dans 
1'effluve.  Comme  matiere  il  est  masse,  et  comme  force  il  est 
abstraction.  II  egalise  et  marie  les  phenomenes.  II  se  simplifie 
par  1'infini  dans  la  combinaison.  C'est  a  force  de  melange  et 
de  trouble  qu'il  arrive  a  la  transparence.  La  diversite  soluble 
se  fond  dans  son  unite.  II  a  tant  d'elements  qu'il  est  Pidentite. 
Une  de  ses  gouttes.  c'est  tout  lui.  Parce  qu'il  est  plein  de 
tempetes,  il  devient  1'equilibre.  Platon  voyait  danser  les  spheres  ; 
chose  etrange  a  dire,  mais  reelle,  dans  la  colossale  evolution 
terrestre  autour  du  soleil,  1'ocean,  avec  son  flux  et  reflux,  est  le 
balancier  du  globe,"  etc.  etc. 

Protracted  over  innumerable  pages,  this  sort  of  thing 
becomes  distracting.  It  is  more  like  Euripides  than 
^Eschylus,  but  it  is  far  below  even  Euripides.  It  is 
worthy,  in  fact,  of — "Monte  Cristo;"  still  more 
worthy  of  M.  Louis  Figuier,  who  popularises  science 
for  the  unscientific  in  illustrated  volumes  of  rubbish. 
It  is  certainly  not  worthy  of  the  master-poet  of  this 


FXOM  J-:SC/IYLUS  TO  VICTOR  HUGO.      37 

generation.  It  is  not  merely  worthless  in  itself,  but  it 
has  a  most  demoralising  influence  on  inferior  artists. 
A  few  remarks  may  naturally  be  made  here  on 
the  character  of  the  modern  novel,  and  its  relation  to 
other  works  of  Art.     There  is  no  absolute  reason, 
that    I    perceive,   why    the    novel    should    not    be 
infinitely  more  perfect   than    our   greatest   novelists 
choose  to  make  it,  why  it  should  not  take  artistic 
rank  just  under  the  very  highest  poetry;  and  there  is 
this  much  to  be  said   for  it  against  all  other  finer 
products,  that  it  appeals  to  all  classes  of  the  com- 
munity alike,  and  carries  broadcast  seeds  which  our 
poets   lock  up  in  the  ivory  caskets  of  mystic  and 
rhythmic  speech.     In  our  own  days  we  have  seen 
some  half-dozen  novel-poems,  of  the  finest  and  most 
delightful    workmanship  —  Canon    Kingsley's    "  Hy- 
patia  "  and  "  Westward  Ho,"  Reade's  first  version  of 
the  "  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,"  Hawthorne's  "  Scarlet 
Letter,"  Thackeray's  "  Esmond,"  and  Dickens'  "  Cop- 
perfield."     None  of  these  excellent  works,  however, 
are  so  distinctly  and  emphatically  poetic  as  the  novels 
of  Victor  Hugo.     Most  perfect  and  finished  as  works 
of  Art  are  the  novels  of  the  late  Nathaniel   Haw- 
thorne, most  finished  of  all  "The   Scarlet    Letter," 
an    effusion  of  terrible  and   stupefying   gloom,  but 
wonderfully   finely  wrought.      If  Victor    Hugo   had 
been  fettered  by  an  art  as  rigid  as  that  of  Hawthorne, 
and  had  restricted  his  canvas  accordingly,  he  would 
have  escaped  all  those  mad  splashes  of  the  brush 
which   disfigure  his  best  painting.     Confined  to  the 
compass  of  the  "  Scarlet  Letter,"  "  Les  Travailleurs  de 
la  Mer  "  would  have  been  of  double  its  present  value. 
We  want  all  its  gold,  but  not  any  particle  of  its  dross. 
"  Les    Miserables,"   too,  might  be  curtailed  one-half 
with  tremendous  advantage.     As  for  "  L'Homme  qui 


38  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Rit,"  I  am  not  so  sure  that  it  might  not  have  been 
curtailed  altogether,  for  one  third  of  it  is  hideous, 
another  third  of  it  is  nasty,  and  the  remaining  third 
is  only  a  repetition  of  what  its  author  has  said  better 
elsewhere.  Each  of  these  works,  despite  its  prose  form, 
is  a  poem — a  work  which  could  have  been  expressed 
as  well,  or  better,  in  verse.  Why  then  did  Victor 
Hugo,  whose  command  of  metrical  effects  is  so  con- 
summate, abandon  them  in  composing  his  greatest 
works  ?  Because,  the  truth  must  be  admitted,  he 
perceived  that  the  Novel,  with  all  its  limitations, 
bears  the  same  relation  to  this  generation  that  the 
Tragic  Drama  did  to  the  generation  of  yEschylus,  in 
so  far  as  it  is  the  resource  and  study  of  the  entire 
reading  world.  During  the  annual  period  of  the 
dramatic  performances,  it  was  the  simple  duty 
of  every  Athenian  citizen  to  attend  and  behold 
them  ;  they  were  produced  for  the  delight  and  edifica- 
tion of  the  Many,  not  for  the  aesthetic  gratification  of 
the  Few ;  and  although  their  poetic  claims  were 
privately  adjudicated  by  delicate  critics,  their  general 
appeal  was  to  the  public.  It  would  be  going  too  far 
to  compare  the  productions  of  what  was  essentially  a 
religious  festival  with  modern  productions  created 
only  for  the  pleasure  of  the  hour ;  but  the  Novel 
bears  at  least  this  resemblance  to  Greek  tragedy — it 
gratifies,  when  successfully  written,  an  enormous  as- 
semblage of  people.  Its  literary  form  may  be  loose, 
its  influence  ephemeral,  its  appeals  undignified  ;  but 
surely  these  are  results  which  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  question — whether  or  not  a  prose  story  may  not 
be  as  perfect  in  its  way  as  a  Greek  tragedy  ? — or  at 
any  rate,  to  reduce  the  question  to  a  closer  issue, 
infinitely  more  perfect  than  any  novelist,  with  the  ex- 
ception, perhaps,  of  Hawthorne,  chooses  to  make  it  ? 


FROM  sESCHYLUS    TO    VICTOR   HUGO.         39 

I  know  scarcely  ahy  modern  fiction  in  three  volumes, 
for  example,  which  would  not  have  been  infinitely 
better  if  restricted  to  one  volume  ; — always  excepting, 
•of  course,  those  collections  of  humorous  sketches 
which  constitute  a  story  by  Thackeray  or  Dickens, 
and  in  which  an  infinity  of  diverting  characters 
are  introduced  almost  at  haphazard,  with  no  very 
special  adherence  to  a  serious  chain  of  interest. 
Examine,  for  example,  that  very  elaborate  work  of 
art,  George  Eliot's  "  Romola."  No  contemporary 
work  is  better  conceived,  with  more  admirable  cha- 
racters and  a  more  tragic  plot ;  yet,  has  any  student 
ever  read  it  through  with  anything  but  weariness,  due 
to  the  masses  of  unemotional  verbiage  by  which  the 
ideas  are  wrapt,  disguised,  and  overclouded  ?  This, 
however,  is  an  example  of  a  novel  without  sponta- 
neity, rather  than  of  inordinate  length,  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  any  mere  compression  could  make 
•"  Romola"  the  tragedy  it  ought  to  have  been.  Turn 
to  a  work  of  far  humbler  pretensions,  but  of  infinitely 
higher  successes — the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield."  Here 
is  a  poem,  simple,  spontaneous,  hearty,  beautiful,  and 
brief.  This,  however,  is  a  mere  genre  picture;  and 
for  any  parallel  in  fiction  to  the  mighty  creations  of 
the  Attic  stage,  we  must  return  to  Victor  Hugo. 
Hugo  has  attempted,  with  more  or  less  success,  as  we 
have  been  endeavouring  to  show,  to  use  the  novel,  as 
yEschylus  used  the  drama,  as  a  vehicle  for  the  highest 
poetry  of  which  the  age  is  capable.  The  splendour 
of  his  achievements  has  justified  a  perilous  experi- 
ment, and  the  question  is  no  longer  one  of  mere  Art, 
in  which  his  inferiority  and  that  of  the  novel  is  seen 
and  admitted,  but  of  intellectual  grasp  and  moral 
teaching,  concerning  which  there  will  doubtless  be  an 
infinity  of  diverging  opinions. 


40  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

VI. 
THE   PROMETHEAN  MYTH. 

ONE  characteristic  must  strike  at  once  the  most 
superficial  reader  of  Hugo's  novels — their  unutterable 
despair.  This  also  is  the  characteristic  of  the  stories 
of  George  Eliot,  but  while  her  despair  is  unpleasantly 
suggestive  of  the  Feuerbach  she  translated  in  her 
literary  youth,  that  of  Hugo  is  the  despair  of  a  Poet 
His  colossal  masculine  types,  while  they  triumph 
invariably  more  or  less  over  the  triple  anarchy  of 
Religion,  Society,  and  Nature,  double  up  like  houses 
of  cards  before  the  anarchy  of  their  own  sentiments 
— or,  as  the  writer  expresses  it,  "  of  the  human 
heart."  The  ocean  closes  over  Gilliatt  because  he 
cannot  with  courage  endure  the  contemplation  of  a 
rival's  happiness,  not  because  the  nobler  part  of  his 
life  has  been  a  failure.  Jean  Valjean  dies  broken- 
hearted, not  because  he  has  failed  to  redeem  himself 
utterly  from  the  shadow  of  crime  and  degraded  in- 
stinct under  which  he  was  born,  but  because  he  misses 
the  individual  filial  love  which  his  own  conscience 
assures  him  is  not  worth  the  winning.  For  Quasimodo 
there  is  justification — he  is  utterly  and  cruelly  crushed 
down  at  all  points — but  for  these  others  there  is  none 
whatever  ;  they  fail,  despite  their  inexorable  will,  for 
want  of  a  higher  and  solemner  purpose  than  could 
ever  be  consecrated  by  the  lips  of  a  woman  or  the 
embraces  of  a  child.  They  stalk  on  the  stage  like 
Titans — they  creep  off  the  stage  like  Liliputians. 
They  win  our  pity  in  the  end,  but  not  the  right  sort  of 
pity.  We  expect  the  sacrament  of  true  tragedy,  and 
it  is  not  given.  That  one  word,  "  Anarchy/'  which 


.KSCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.        41 

repelled  us  at  the  beginning,  is  whispered  again  to  us 
at  the  end. 

It  is  a  solemn  thing  to  discuss  a  Poet's  religious 
belief;  a  solemn,  and  often  a  useless,  thing.  Here, 
however,  the  question  being  forced  upon  me,  let  me 
ask,  in  all  humility  before  the  mind  of  a  Master, 
whether  the  gloominess  of  his  religious  faith  does  not 
leave  him,  so  to  speak,  in  intellectual  and  moral  dark- 
ness ?  It  would  be  difficult  to  state  definitely  what 
Victor  Hugo  believes,  nor  would  what  he  believed 
matter — if  the  nature  of  his  belief  were  a  little  brighter. 
In  no  man's  pages  does  the  name  of  "  God  "  appear 
so  often,  and  he  uses  it  in  the  same  way  as  ^Eschylus 
to  express  two  ideas,  one  very  execrable,  the  other 
very  divine  ;  but  whether  he  regards  this  God  as  the 
Personal  One  of  theologians,  or  the  pantheistic  Spirit 
of  Spinoza,  or  the  mysterious  Unknowable  of  the 
doctrine  of  Evolution,  one  thing  is  certain — he  ap- 
proaches Him  too  much  in  a  mood  of  despairing 
gloom.  Nor  is  it  Divinity  alone  that  he  approaches 
in  this  manner.  Nature  herself,  he  regards,  or  seems 
to  regard,  as  something  horrible,  alien,  treacherous, 
and  forbidding.  There  is  no  love  in  his  fear,  as  there 
was  in  Shelley's ;  for  it  is  not  her  awful  beauty  that 
dazzles  him,  it  is  not  her  mystic  voice  that  awes  him, 
it  is  not  her  divine  touch  that  thrills  him.  No  poet 
of  equal  rank  was  ever  so  obtuse  to  her  mere  beauty. 
The  peace  of  Wordsworth,  the  passion  of  Keats,  the 
tender  pang  of  Shelley,  are  far  from  his  bosom.  He 
folds  his  arms  upon  his  bosom,  and  without  quailing, 
gazes  upon — the  Abyss  (L'Abtme).  The  Abyss  fas- 
cinates him  till  he  becomes  light-headed,  and  raves 
about  it  till  its  name  becomes  a  catchword.  He  sees 
Monsters,  Portents,  Shadows,  Terrors,  Horrors  in- 
conceivable— all  entities  like  Gorgon,  all  abstractions 


42  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

like  the  Chimaera.  He  thinks,  because  he  is  gloomy, 
there  shall  be  no  more  cakes  and  ale.  He  knows  the 
names  of  all  the  Winds,  but  he  is  indifferent  to  all  the 
"flowers.  He  walks  abroad  only  in  the  twilight,  when 
bats  fly  and  owls  cry.  His  creations  are  hideous  as  the 
forces  with  which  they  fight  Quasimodo,  Jean  Val- 
jean,  the  nameless  one  who  Grins,  are  alike  hideous. 
""  Quand  Dieu  veut,"  he  observes,  "  il  excelle  dans 
Pexecrable."  Victor  Hugo  himself,  however,  and  not 
God,  is  responsible  for  the  "  Pieuvre  !  "  When  Victor 
Hugo  wills,  he  excels  in  the  execrable,  and  unfortu- 
nately, he  wills  very  often.  His  pictures  are  deficient 
in  the  all-purifying  daylight.  He  gives  us  sun,  moon, 
stars,  earth,  clouds,  man,  woman,  bird,  and  beast — all 
in  colossal  silhouette. 

It  is  hardly  conceivable,  then,  that  gloom  so 
monotonous  can  co-exist  with  a  bright  and  happy 
faith.  The  gloom  of  ^Eschylus  is  different ;  it  is 
solemn  more  than  terrifying.  One  does  not  shiver  in  it, 
in  fear  of  cold  unseen  phantoms  that  "  uplift  the  hair." 
Through  it,  star-like  presences  shine  at  intervals,  and 
the  presence  of  Zeus  is  ever  felt.  Above  all,  the 
final  word  is  one  of  blessing,  and  the  spectator  is  dis- 
missed as  with  a  divine  benediction  of  hands.  With 
Victor  Hugo,  this  benediction  is  missed  ;  nay,  our 
own  faith  is  shaken  by  what  we  have  seen  and  heard  ; 
for  if  the  last  word  of  mighty  natures  is  to  be  despair 
and  suicide,  what  are  we  to  hope  whose  natures  are 
not  mighty  ?  This  persistent  dwelling  in  gloom  has 
other  results.  It  makes  the  poet  wild,  uncertain,  and 
unsteady.  It  confuses  his  vision,  so  that  he  is  apt  to 
mistake  very  harmless  human  faces  for  awful  portents, 
and  to  be  startled  by  events  which,  to  the  world  in 
general,  might  seem  cheerful.  He  loses  clearness  of 
judgment,  and  falls  into  superstition.  There  is  a 


.-KSCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         43 

character  in  one  of  Mr.  Reade's  novels,  Jael  Dence, 
who  sees  omens  in  everything,  down  to  pins  and 
needles.  Victor  Hugo  is  a  literary  Jael.  Fortified 
with  all  the  culture  of  the  nineteenth  century,  deep  in 
all  its  science,  and  strong  in  all  its  poetry,  he  cannot 
move  about  the  earth  in  peace,  or  take  his  place 
among  the  creatures  of  gladness,  even  for  a  single 
moment.  Very  characteristic,  for  example,  is  his  way 
of  looking  at  the  ocean.  He  has  no  joy  in  it,  no 
mighty  exultation  such  as  Byron  felt  when  he  sang — 

Time  writes  no  wrinkle  on  thine  azure  brow, 
Such  as  creation's  dawn  beheld,  thou  rollest  now. 

Thou  glorious  mirror,  where  the  Almighty's  form 

Glasses  itself  in  tempests  :  in  all  time, 
Calm  or  convulsed — in  breeze,  or  gale,  or  storm, 

Icing  the  pole,  or  in  the  torrid  clime 
Dark-heaving  ;  boundless,  endless,  and  sublime — 

The  image  of  eternity,  the  throne 
Of  the  Invisible  ;  even  from  out  thy  slime 

The  monsters  of  the  deep  are  made  ;  each  zone 

Obeys  thee;  thou  goest  forth,  dread,  fathomless,  alone. 

And  I  have  loved  thee,  Ocean  !  and  my  joy 
Of  youthful  sports  was  on  thy  breast  to  be 

Borne,  like  thy  bubbles,  onward  :  from  a  boy 
I  wantoned  with  thy  breakers  ;  they  to  me 

Were  a  delight  ;  and  if  the  freshening  sea 
Made  them  a  terror,  'twas  a  pleasing  fear, 

For  I  was,  as  it  were,  a  child  of  thee, 
And  trusted  to  thy  billows  far  and  near, 
And  laid  my  hand  upon  thy  mane,  as  I  do  here. 

He  knows  not  its  loveliness,  he  comprehends  not  its 
serenity,  as  Shelley  did,  as  all  beauty-loving  poets 
have  done.  He  thinks  of  the  monsters  in  its  depths, 
not  of  the  "  fairily-wrought "  shells  upon  its  shore.  He 
regards  it  as  an  enemy,  not  as  a  mighty  friend.  For 
these  and  for  many  reasons,  he  does  not  understand 
the  sea ;  indeed,  it  is  doubtful  if  any  Frenchman  ever 
will.  As  it  is  with  the  great  waters,  so  it  is  with  all 


44  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  rest  —  to  him.  He  could  have  conceived  Prome- 
theus, perhaps,  but  not  the  Okeanides,  with  the  bright 
sea-light  shining  on  their  wings,  the  love  and  free- 
dom, and  av^pi6p.ov  ye'Xao-na  of  the  waves  sparkling  in 
their  eyes.  He  is  the  Rembrandt,  not  the  Correggio, 
of  novelists.  In  stature  and  strength  he  is  an  ancient 
Greek,  but  the  Greek  "joy"  is  an  unknown  gleam  to 
him. 

So,  when  I  seek  the  last  word  of  that  divine 
trilogy  which  yEschylus  wrote  twenty  -three  hun- 
dred years  ago,  I  have  to  turn,  not  to  him  who 
is  most  like  ^schylus  in  shadowy  power  and  colossal 
imagery,  but  to  our  own  English  poet  of  the  dreamy 
eyes  and  the  silvern-ringing  voice.  The  missing 
"  Prometheus  Luomenos  "  is  not  wholly  lost  to  us, 
so  long  as  we  can  hear  the  wonderful  voice  of  Shelley 
singing  aloud  his  solemn  and  impassioned  sequel. 
The  "  Prometheus  Unbound  "  is,  of  course,  a  pro- 
duction far  too  thin  and  emotional  in  character  to  be 
classed  quite  in  the  same  rank  as  the  marble  work  of 
./Eschylus  ;  but  it  is  a  poem  of  surpassing  modern 
beauties,  and  its  choric  portions  form  a  fit  paean  of 
triumph  and  victory  for  the  ^Eschylan  Titan.  Its 
early  passages  are  merely  a  free  paraphrase  of  the 
"  Prometheus  Bound,"  and  the  appeal  to  "  earth, 
heaven,"  and  "  all-beholding  sun,"  is  the  immortal 

o>   dios  alOrjp  ...... 

7iap.fJ.r)Top  TC  777, 

KVK\OV    f]\LOV 


done  into  wonderful  blank  verse  ;  just  as  the  line, 

6v  7f  ireXayos  drrjpas  dvrjs, 


is   the   original  of  Hamlet's  "sea  of  troubles,"  and 
a-v  p.vf]po(nv  fiArois  (ppwwv"  contains  Hamlet's 


FROM  AESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         45 

"  tablets  of  my  memory."  Much  that  follows  is  too 
transparently  propagandist  to  be  quite  pleasing,  and 
in  the  scene  of  the  Furies  there  is  too  much  of  Lord 
Byron  ;  but  the  conception  of  Demogorgon,  and  the 
scene  in  Demogorgon's  cave,  and  the  characters  of 
Asia  and  Panthea,  are  magnificent  beyond  com- 
parison. It  is  with  the  ethic  flavour  of  the  poem, 
however,  that  I  have  at  present  to  deal  en  passant, 
and  this  is  chiefly  revealed  in  the  noble  melodies  of 
the  fourth  and  last  act.  Here,  in  her  exultation  at  the 
freedom  of  Prometheus,  the  Earth  prophesies  the 
triumph  and  regeneration  of  man — 

Man,  one  harmonious  soul  of  many  a  soul, 

Whose  nature  is  its  own  divine  control, 
Where  all  things  flow  to  all,  as  rivers  to  the  sea  ; 

Familiar  acts  are  beautiful  through  love  ; 

Labour,  and  pain,  and  grief,  in  life's  green  grove, 
Sport  like  tame  beasts,  none  knew  how  gentle  they  could  be. 

His  will,  with  all  mean  passions,  bad  delights, 
And  selfish  cares,  its  trembling  satellites, 

A  spirit  ill  to  guide,  but  mighty  to  obey, 

Is  as  a  tempest-winged  ship,  whose  helm 

Love  rules,  through  waves  which  dare  not  overwhelm, 

Forcing  life's  wildest  shores  to  own  its  sovereign  sway. 

All  things  confess  his  strength.     Through  the  cold  mass 
Of  marble  and  of  colour  his  dreams  pass  ; 

Bright  threads  whence  mothers  weave  the  robes  their  children 

wear. 

Language  is  a  perpetual  orphic  song, 
Which  rules  with  Daedal  harmony  a  throng 

Of  thoughts  and  forms,  which  else  senseless  and  shapeless  were. 

The  lightning  is  his  slave  ;  heaven's  utmost  deep 

Gives  up  her  stars,  and,  like  a  flock  of  sheep, 
They  pass  before  his  eyes,  are  number'd,  and  roll  on  ! 

The  tempest  is  his  steed,  he  strides  the  air  ; 

And  the  abyss  shouts  from  her  depths  laid  bare, 
"  Heaven,  hast  thou  secrets  ?     Man  unveils  me  ;  I  have  none." 

Prometheus,  then,  has  not  wrought  in  vain  ;  his  suf- 
ferings  have   not   been  without  their  reward.      The 


46  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

creature  of  his  sublime  and  never-ceasing  love,  Hu- 
manity, has  become  strong,  beautiful,  and  free,  and 
the  "  shadow  of  white  death  "  has  passed  from  the 
path  of  liberated  Nature. 

In  this  extraordinary  lyric  poem  of  Shelley  there 
is  a  variegated  light  and  sweetness,  a  continual  flow 
of  lovely  and  soul-soothing  images,  which  redeem  a 
certain  indefiniteness  and  hollowness  of  meaning.  We 
are  comforted  by  sheer  excess  of  light.  Our  path  is 
rainbowed  with  a  thousand  flowers,  our  heavens  are 
throbbing  with  innumerable  stars.  A  pulse  of  happi- 
ness throbs  through  Nature,  and  we  feel  it.  Now  it 
is  this  abundant  joy  that  we  miss  in  Victor  Hugo. 
He  altogether  lacks  Shelley's  divine  faith — a  faith 
born  of  sheer  exultation  in  the  Beautiful.  While 
Victor  Hugo  is  ever  brooding  on  the  shadowy  side  of 
Nature,  Shelley  is  ever  singing  on  the  ethereal  side. 
He  has  none  of  the  strong  earthly  joy  of  Shakespeare, 
of  the  deep  solemn  enjoyment  of  Wordsworth.  He 
soars,  like  his  own  skylark,  through  the  heart  of  a 
shower  ;  and  such  "  harmonious  madness  "  flows  from 
his  lips,  that  the  world  is  constrained  to  listen.  His 
"  Prometheus,"  therefore,  is,  as  it  were,  the  choric 
portion  of  the  last  act  of  the  ^Eschylan  trilogy ;  to 
construct  the  play  completely,  as  ^Eschylus  would 
have  done,  is  naturally  beyond  him.  If  we  could  con- 
ceive the  faculties  of  Victor  Hugo  and  Shelley  blent 
together — Hugo  creating  the  mighty  forms  and  images 
of  the  drama,  while  Shelley  supplied  the  music — we 
might  imagine  what  the  lost  "  Prometheus  "  was,  or 
ought  to  have  been. 

I  cannot  dismiss  the  Promethean  myth  without 
briefly  chronicling  its  influence  on  the  mind  of 
another  English  poet,  the  scholastic  Milton.  In  the 
"  Paradise  Lost "  of  this  author,  we  have  an  extra- 


FROM  sESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         4? 

ordinary  version  of  the  same  story,  Prometl 
appearing-  under  the  character  of  "  Satan,"  and  / 
under  the  name  of  the  Lord  God  of  the  Hebrews. 
The  parallel  holds  in  minute  particulars.  The  story 
of  the  angelic  war,  in  which  many  of  the  archangels 
side  with  God,  and  many  others  revolt  with  Satan,  is 
identical  with  the  story  of  the  rebellious  Titans.  But 
Satan,  with  all  his  power  of  diatribe,  is  a  degraded 
Prometheus.  His  malignity  is  that  of  a  petulant 
schoolboy,  and  his  hatred  of  humanity  is  irrational 
and  uninteresting. 

Farewell,  remorse  :  all  good  to  me  is  lost : 
Evil,  be  though  my  good  ;  by  thee  at  least 
Divided  empire  with  Heaven's  King  I  hold, 
By  thee,  and  more  than  half  perhaps  will  reign  ; 
As  man  ere  long  and  this  new  world  shall  know. 

This  Devil  is  so  morally  foolish  in  his  didactic  wicked- 
ness, that  we  have  little  or  no  interest  in  him.  But 
the  idea  of  a  titanic  Human  Spirit,  loving  humanity 
at  large,  leading  them  from  darkness  into  the  sun, 
instructing  them  in  purifying  arts,  teaching  them  all 
knowledge  from  pharmacy  up  to  augury,  this  is  a 
sublime  idea,  and  therefore  it  is  imperishable. 
Founded  also  on  eternal  truth  is  the  idea  of  a 
Supreme  Evil  with  whom  this  Being  is  at  war — the 
personification  of  terrible  and  cruel  Power,  adminis- 
tering and  dominating,  to  damnable  issues,  the 
elemental  anarchy  of  which  he  is  the  awful  fruit. 
This  Supreme  Evil,  however,  is  to  fall  ;  above  him 
and  beyond  him  "  darkening  his  fall  with  victory,"  is 
that  other  Supreme  Good,  the  divine  incomprehen- 
sible "  God  "  of  all  divine  poets,  from  ^Eschylus  to 
Shelley.  Nothing  is  more  wonderful  in  yEschylus 
than  his  foreshadowing  of  problems  which  have  been 


48  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  delight  of  modern  science.  Primaeval  man  lives 
again  in  such  lines  as  these : 

Through  all  their  days,  like  phantoms  seen  in  dreams, 
All  things  they  mixed  at  random,  knowing  not 
Dwellings  of  stone  that  catch  the  summer  sun, 
Nor  yet  the  useful  work  of  carpentry  ; 
But  deep  they  dwelt,  like  swarms  of  gnats,  within 
Dark  sunless  caverns,  with  no  sign  to  show 
Frost-laden  winter,  flower-bearing  spring, 
Or  summer  with  her  fruits,"  etc.  etc. 

Such  a  race  as  yEschylus  pictured  needed  the 
Prometheus  who  surely  came.  For  the  Spirit  of  Man 
is  ever  far  in  advance  of  humanity  at  large,  and  might 
thus  be  justly  typified  in  a  titanic  "  Forethought/' 
Moderns  hungry  for  meanings  may  also  discover  in 
the  figure  of  lo,  a  type  of  oppressed  Womanhood, 
tortured,  polluted,  outcast,  and  utterly  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Supreme  Evil  in  its  earliest  and  most  hateful 
form  of  unbridled  passion.  The  Voice  that  comes 
thronging  into  lo's  "  virgin  chambers," — 

e'y  irapQfvaivas  TOVS  epovs, 

was  the  despair  and  misery  of  Woman  since  the 
beginning ;  and  not  until  Zeus  has  fallen,  and  the  era 
of  pure  knowledge  begins,  shall  the  vestal  creature 
walk  abroad  upon  the  earth  in  peace. 


VII. 

SUMMARY. 

I  HAVE  thus  endeavoured  to  sketch,  briefly  yet  dis- 
cursively, the  connection  of  the  great  Greek  tragic 
poet  with  modern  writers,  but  especially  with  Victor 
Hugo.  The  poetry  of  the  world  constitutes  one  great 


FROM  sESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         49 

and,  as  yet,  uncompleted  Poem,  the  last  utterance  of 
which  shall  not  be  heard  until  Humanity  has  reached 
the  final  point  of  divine  knowledge  and  consummate 
literary  expression  ;  and  the  rank  and  worth  of  every 
poet  is  to  be  determined,  earlier  or  later,  by  his  rela- 
tion to  the  cosmic  music  of  which  his  song  is  to  form 
a  part.  If  these  facts  be  admitted,  as  they  must 
unquestioningly  be  by  every  student  of  literature,  it 
follows  that  the  criterion  of  poetry  is  its  religious 
truth — its  agreement  or  discord,  in  other  words,  with 
the  sum  of  knowledge  which  Humanity  has  been  dili- 
gently accumulating  from  time  immemorial  ;  and 
criticised  under  such  conditions,  many  singers  fall 
into  comparative  insignificance  whom  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  regard  as  irreproachable  bards.  Thus, 
Milton  falls  into  second  or  third  rank,  while  ^Eschylus 
rises  to  the  very  first.  Dante  stands  firm,  filling  the 
darkest  and  saddest  chapter  of  the  book ;  while 
Virgil  survives  chiefly  in  the  illumination  of  Dante's 
page.  Goethe  is  sure  of  some  consecration  ;  but  per- 
haps he  will  be  deemed,  when  the  final  classification 
comes,  less  beloved  and  bright  than  our  own  Shelley, 
less  colossal  than  this  other  descendant  of  the  demi- 
gods, Victor  Hugo.  One  can  hardly  conceive  an 
epoch,  however  far  advanced  in  time,  when  the 
"  Prometheus  "  of  /Eschylus,  the  "  Inferno  "  of  Dante, 
the  "Prometheus  Bound"  of  Shelley,  and  "  Les 
Miserables  "  of  Victor  Hugo  (as  divinely  real  a  poem 
this  as  any  of  the  rest),  will  become  as  tedious  from 
all  but  a  purely  literary  point  of  view  as  the 
"  /Eneid  "  of  Virgil  became  with  the  first  breath  of 
the  Renaissance,  and  as  the  "  Paradise  Lost "  of 
Milton  has  become  in  the  last  light  of  modern 
thought.  That  mere  style,  however  wonderful,  will 
not  save  a  poem,  is  proved  by  these  examples.  Style 

E 


50  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

is   all-important,  but   it  will  not  avail  alone.      The// 

criterion  of  a  poem  is  its  eternal  truth  to  history  o/  a 

human  nature.     A  work   hopelessly  fettered   to  am 

effete  superstition,  or  to  a  weary  and  uninteresting 

tradition,  cannot,  however  exquisitely  wrought  in  the 

details,  be  classed  with  first-rate  literature.     To  bring 

the  question  to  an  issue,  if  the  gloom  of  Victor  Hugo 

were  less  complete,  if  his  moral  teaching  were  less 

persistently   suicidal,    his    certainty   of    immortality 

would  be  greater  than  it  is.     He  fails  to  represent 

his  generation  in  so  far  as  he  fails  to  image  forth  its 

happiness   and   its  hope,  together  with  those   ideal 

aspirations  which  constitute  in  all  generations  what 

is  termed  "  religion ;  "    and  in  this  respect  he  is  far 

inferior,  for   example,  to    Shelley.      The   charge   of 

atheism  has  been  brought  against  both  these  poets, 

and  with  equal   justice  and   consistency.      But  the 

atheist   is   he   who    disbelieves   in  light   altogether, 

utterly  repudiates  that  mystic  Zeus  of  whom  ^Eschylus 

sang,    and    believes    that    human    nature    is    going 

headlong  to  ruin  and  despair.     The  atheist  is  he  who 

cries  with  Schopenhauer  that  life  is  ' f  a  cheat,  and  a 

uselessly  interrupting  episode  in  the  blissful  repose  of 

nothing."     The  atheist  is  he  who  grimly  affirms  with 

Feuerbach  that   "  Der  Mann   ist  was  er  isst."     An 

atheistical  poet  is  an  anomaly,  an  impossibility  ;  and 

Shelley,  so  far  from  being  an  atheist,  is,  of  all  modern 

poets,  with  the  exception  of  Wordsworth,  the  most 

religious — so   constantly  in    a  white  heat  of  divine 

ecstasy  and  worship,  that  his  music  becomes  almost 

monotonous.     Victor    Hugo,  on   the  other   hand,  is 

atheistic   just  in  so  far  as  he  fails  to  perceive  the 

triumph  of  human  nature   over   all   the   conditions 

which  mar  it,  and  drag  it  down.     He  himself,  in  one 

of  the   finest    poems   of    "  L'Annee    Terrible/'   has 


.ESCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         51 

expressly  vindicated  himself  against  the  charge  of 
atheism  brought  against  him  by  \mirabiU  dictu  /)  a 
French  Bishop !  No  charge  is  easier  to  bring,  or 
harder  to  bear.  As  I  write,  I  see  it,  in  several 
journals,  brought  against  a  distinguished  living  poet, 
Mr.  Algernon  Swinburne.  The  present  writer  cannot 
certainly  be  accused  of  sympathising  unduly  with  the 
school  Mr.  Swinburne  represents,  but  he  takes  this 
opportunity  of  saying  that  Mr.  Swinburne  is  an 
atheist  in  the  sense  that  Shelley  was  one,  and  in  no 
other.  The  wealth  of  his  vocabulary  of  abuse  should 
not  mislead  us.  He  utters  the  truth  as  he  feels  and 
sees  it;  he  utters  it,  now  and  then,  too  madly;  but  the 
very  strength  of  his  invective  is  a  proof  that  he  is  in 
earnest.  He  fights  his  adversaries  with  a  flail,  and 
the  weapon  too  often  rebounds,  as  such  weapons  will 
even  in  powerful  hands,  upon  his  own  head.  But  for 
all  that,  he  is  one  of  the  army  of  God,  and  we  forgive 
him  all  his  outrageousness  when  he  speaks,  as  he 
so  often  can  and  will,  the  lovely  language  of 
Sion.  There  are  far  too  many  real  atheists  in  the 
world — men  who  hate  truth,  and  have  no  faith  in 
beauty.  Let  us  not  class  among  them  any  one 
authentic  poet,  however  much  his  non-poetical  utter- 
ances may  offend  our  prejudices,  and  even  amaze  our 
reason. 

And  finally,  turning  back  to  Victor  Hugo,  let  us 
remember,  what  perhaps  I  have  been  rather  for- 
getting, the  utterness  of  his  love  and  charity  for  all 
the  created  world,  and  especially  for  Humanity. 
There  are  words  in  his  pages,  syllables  of  divine 
tenderness,  sweet  enough  to  wake  a  soul  under  the 
very  ribs  of  Death  ;  inexpressibly  sad  perhaps,  but 
most  fond  and  pitiful.  Read  the  story  of  "  Fantine," 
an  episode  repeated  a  thousandfold  in  every  city 

E  2 


52  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

and  in  every  street ;  read  that  narrative  of  miserable 
sin  and  divine  maternal  tenderness,  and  feel  the 
blinding  tears  stream  down  your  cheeks  in  sym- 
pathy and  love.  "  The  pity  of  it,  the  pity  of  it, 
lago!"  Turn  again  to  the  history  of  the  good 
Bishop  Myriel,  remembering  as  you  read  that  there 
were  some  diabolical  enough  to  call  even  him 
— "  atheist !  "  Was  ever  a  picture  more  benignly 
soul-assuring?  What  "anarchy"  could  long  resist 
the  seraphic  sweetness  of  the  good  Bishop's  smile  ? 
Victor  Hugo's  faith  is  firm — in  goodness,  in  human 
love,  in  Democracy.  Dark  as  many  of  his  premoni- 
tions have  been,  he  believes  in  the  world's  regenera- 
tion. His  canvas  maybe  too  full  of  Pieuvres,  horrors, 
and  chimaeras  dire  ;  of  evil  monsters,  and  of  evil  men  ; 
of  cruel  elements  incarnated  in  titanic  forms  ;  but 
over  and  beyond  these,  he  paints  the  sunrise — dim, 
cold,  far-off,  cheerless  as  yet,  but  slowly  creeping  up 
from  the  eternal  gates  of  morning.  His  defects  are 
those  of  his  country  and  of  his  race — too  much  faith 
and  too  little  ;  too  much  faith  in  human  strength  and 
pride,  too  little  faith  in  the  Eternal  Calm.  Only  the 
other  day  he  seemed  caught  in  the  whirlwind  of  a 
national  passion,  mingling  with  those  who  still  would 
conjure  up  the  insatiable  devil  of  Battle ;  this  was 
only  for  a  moment ;  and  soon  his  voice  was  heard 
above  the  storm,  preaching  chanty  and  peace.  It 
would  be  pitiable  if  Victor  Hugo  were  only  a 
Frenchman;  it  would  be  horrible  if  the  sentiment  of 
nationality  had  eclipsed  that  sentiment  of  cosmopoli- 
tanism, which  sooner  or  later  will  slay  the  Wai- 
Monster  for  ever.  Out  of  all  the  mist  of  contem- 
porary wrath  and  passion,  out  of  the  very  darkness  of 
his  own  creed,  the  great  poet  emerges,  beautiful  and 
wise.  No  nobler  figure  is  to  be  seen  among  living 


FROM  &SCHYLUS   TO    VICTOR  HUGO.         53 

men.  His  greatness  is  without  question,  his  immor- 
tality is  sure.  When  he  passes  to  the  Immortals,  his 
place  will  be  close  to  ^Eschylus,  if  not  at  his  side. 

NOTE. — This  article  was  written  before  the  death  of  Victor 
Hugo.  Since  it  was  written,  Mr.  I.  A.  Symonds  has  published, 
in  the  Corn/till  Magazine,  an  article  in  which  he  argues  that 
the  lost  "  Prometheus,"  if  restored  to  us,  would  show  the  poet's 
vindication  of  Zeus  himself  as  Divine  Wisdom.  Everything 
that  comes  from  the  powerful  pen  of  the  author  of  the  "  Renais- 
sance," must  bear  literary  weight,  but  in  the  present  instance  I 
fancy  the  arguments  overstrained.  It  is  almost  impossible  to 
regard  the  threats  and  taunts  of  Prometheus  asmerely  dramatic 
utterances,  with  which  the  poet  has  little  or  rib  sympathy,  and 
if  Mr.  Symonds  is  right,  what  shall  we  say  of  Prometheus' 
prophecy  of  the  Divine  downfall,  which  is  assuredly  to  come? 

R.  B. 


THE    CHARACTER    OF    GOETHE. 


i. 
THE   AMOURS. 

IN  selecting  out  of  Goethe's  enormous  list  of  literary 
productions  the  one  or  two  absolute  masterpieces,* 
and  in  studying  the  great  man's  biography  step  by 
step,  one  is  constantly  doubting,  in  spite  of  oneself, 
whether  Nature  in  the  beginning  really  meant  Goethe 
for  a  genius  at  all ;  and  even  his  very  masterpieces 
are  so  spoilt  by  barbarous  foreign  matter,  by  writing 
which  is  absolutely  depressing  in  its  intellectual 
vapidity,  that  one  sometimes  questions  if  even  they 
could  not  have  been  produced,  by  enormous  cultiva- 
tion, on  a  soil  naturally  fruitful  of  merely  frivolous 
material.  Even  as  it  was,  Goethe,  with  a  little  less 
animation,  would  have  made  a  very  popular  Parson. 
But  the  Amours  turned  the  scale,  decided  the  genius, 


*  Besides  the  books  which  are  best  known  to  English 
readers,  "Faust,"  "  Iphigenia,"  "  Tasso,"  "  Gotz,"  "  Egmont," 
"Werther,"  "Elective  Affinities,"  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  etc., 
Goethe  is  the  author  of  forty-four  dramas,  melodramas,  and 
farces,  and  any  amount  of  travel  and  criticism  ;  and  even  his 
poetical  writings  constitute  a  sort  of  enormous  dumpling,  with 
very  few  currants  indeed  in  proportion  to  the  dough. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.      55 

and    the  world   became   the  richer  for  "  Clarchcn," 
"  Ottilic,"  "Gretchen,"  and,  above  all,  "  Mignon." 

Certainly  Goethe  was  not  a  man  of  genius  in  the 
same  sense  that  Novalis,  or  Jean  Paul  Richter,  or 
John  Keats,  were  men  of  genius.     His  insight  was  a 
slowly-acquired  thing,  not  a  veritable  flash  from  the 
spirit,  such  as  gleams  out  of  the  dying  eyes  of  poets 
41  whom  the  gods  love,"  or  as  lightens  the  strangely 
divine  face  of  the  author  of  "  Titan."     He  was  a  man 
of  high  mettle,  lively,  animated,  yet  without  any  signs 
of  purely  poetic  temperament.     He  had  little  or  no 
humour  of  either  sort — Shakespeare's  and  Richter's 
divine  humour,  or  Fielding's  and  Moliere's  earthly 
humour.     As  a  child,  when  he  "  reared  an  altar  to  the 
Lord,"  on  a  music-stand  of  his  father's,  and  burnt 
thereon  a  pastil,  as  a  sort  of  patriarchal  sacrifice,  he 
was  not  only,  as  Mr.  Hutton  suggests,  without  "awe," 
he  was  instinctively  theatrical,  carried  away  by  the 
prettiness  of  the  effect,  but  quite  incapable  of  true 
religious  emotion.      His  oracular  manners  in  child- 
hood, which  his  mother  has  described  to  us,  were  no 
signs  of  genius  or  of  power;  such  manners,  on  the 
contrary,  are  very  usually  found  in  artificial  children, 
who  are  pampered  at  home,  and  who  shoot  up  into 
most  commonplace   men  and  women.      Providence, 
however,  had   by   no   means   arranged   that   Goethe 
should  grow  up  into  a  parson  or  a  burgomaster,  and 
so,  when  her  pet  was  about  twelve  years  of  age,  she 
sent   a  company  of  French   players   to  perform   at 
Frankfort,  and  so  arranged  matters   that    the    little 
fellow  had  constant  access  behind  the  scenes.     Here, 
Mr.  Hutton  thinks,*  the  natural  delicacy  of  his  mind 
was   first  rubbed   off.      "Certainly  he  was    not   too 

*  Essays,  vol.  i. 


$6  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

young  for  that  morbid  curiosity  about  evil,  which  is 
often  more  tainting  than  evil  itself."  But  I  am  by 
no  means  sure  that  mere  curiosity  of  any  kind  is  con- 
taminating, and  am  inclined  to  believe  that  Goethe 
got  more  moral  harm  in  the  front  of  the  house  than 
in  the  green-room,  and  confirmed  there  the  artificial 
personal  and  moral  manner,  both  of  thought  and  ex- 
pression, which  was  his  characteristic  through  life. 
Fit  nutriment  for  "  egoism  "  was  to  be  found  in  the 
theatre.  The  rest  was  decided  by  Gretchen,  his  first 
boyish  sweetheart.  Then  came  the  love  affair  at 
Leipzig,  then  the  tremendous  business  with  Frederika  ; 
then  this  passion,  then  that;  affinity  following  close 
upon  affinity,  until  Goethe  was  seventy  years  of  age. 
And  only  these  affinities,  as  I  have  suggested,  finally 
manufactured  Goethe  into  a  fine  literary  genius. 
The  mystery  of  sex  was  at  the  bottom  of  it  all. 

Yes ;  but  I  have  scarcely  spoken  of  that  one 
quality  of  Goethe's  mind,  which  was  so  closely  allied 
to  spiritual  perception  as  scarcely  to  be  separable  from 
it  in  his  works — I  mean  its  marvellous  steadfast- 
ness in  retaining,  and  clearness  in  receiving,  impres- 
sions of  all  sorts  from  the  world  without.  Surely 
this  was  genius;  genius  which,  left  to  itself,  would 
almost  under  any  circumstances  have  produced  great 
work  ?  Great,  good,  or  useful  work,  probably  might 
have  issued  from  Goethe's  mind  independent  of  the 
disturbing  element  ;  but  without  the  very  weakness 
which  disfigured  the  man,  that  mind  would  never 
have  planned  high  literature.  Bad,  wretched,  and 
contemptible  as  was  Goethe's  superficial  habit  of  fall- 
ing in  love,  it  was  the  light,  a  real  spiritual  light, 
temporarily  illumining  a  mirror — a  mirror  of  won- 
derful clearness  and  power,  but  lying  so  deep  in  the 
nature  that  neither  the  white  ray  of  faith,  nor  the 


THE   CHARACTER   OF  GOETHE.  57 

bright  gleam  of  moral  rapture,  nor  the  soft  corus- 
cating radiance  of  human  pity,  nor  the  moonlight  of 
religious  awe,  could  reach  it  at  all.  For  nature, 
Goethe  had  never  the  kindling  enthusiasm  and  fervid 
love  of  unsuccessful  poets — Shelley  for  example.  Of 
that  deepest  of  all  pathos,  the  pathos  of  human  tics, 
he  never  had  any  inspiration.  He  had  a  calm  and 
perfect  perception  of  great  literature,  but  masterly 
work  never  mastered  him.  He  believed  in  God, 
chiefly  as  a  useful  and  interesting  "  sentiment."  But 
of  Nature,  Humanity,  Literature,  and  God,  as  seen  in 
the  illumination  of  a  new  affinity,  what  man's  soul 
ever  offered  a  better  reflection  ?  His  lyrics,  his 
11  Werther,"  his  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  his  "  Faust,"  all 
are  autobiographical ;  in  each  we  have  the  lover's 
apotheosis  into  a  bold  literary  form — always  a  femi- 
nine form  ;  and  just,  perhaps,  for  the  reason  that 
women  like  to  be  preached  to,  especially  by  a 
favourite  of  the  other  sex,  and  love  to  carry  solemnity 
into  matters  by  no  means  solemn  in  themselves,  did 
Goethe  gradually  expand  into  the  TITANIC  TUTOR  of 
modern  literature,  strongly  resembling  the  insufferable 
person  in  "  Sandford  and  Merton,"  who  is  for  ever 
"turning  the  occasion  to  advantage  "in  the  way  of 
disquisitions  on  Providence,  morality,  life,  death,  and 
the  musical  glasses.  For  the  spell  which  holds  all 
criticism  yet,  and  which  makes  us  all,  in  spite  of  our- 
selves, criticise  as  if  we  were  born  in  professorial  wigs 
and  had  academic  gowns  for  swathing-clothes,  we  are 
thus  indirectly  indebted  to  Goethe's  sweethearts — to 
Frederika,  to  Annchen,  to  Lili,  and  even  to  little 
Bettina.  Modern  criticism  thus  arose,  and  has  natu- 
rally been  so  extremely  merciful  to  its  parent.  If 
Goethe  had  been  discouraged  a  little  oftener  by  his 
favourites,  we  might  not  have  got  more,  but  we  cer- 


58  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

tainly  should  have  been  spared  much.  As  it  is,  he 
is  ever  resembling,  even  in  his  finest  passages,  the 
"Bourgeois  Gentilhomme"  of  Moliere,  and  talking 
"  prose  "  (for  the  world's  edification)  without  know- 
ing it. 

The  affair  with  Frederika  may  be  described  as  the 
decisive  point  in  his  career.  Had  he  hesitated  then, 
and  married  the  poor  girl,  his  aphrodital  impulses 
might  have  exhausted  themselves  at  the  outset,  and 
we  should  never  have  had  "  Wilhelm  Meister  "  and  the 
other  cerebellic  autobiographies.  Frederika,  as  every 
one  is  supposed  to  know,  was  the  daughter  of  Pastor 
Briou,  who  lived  at  Drusenheim,  near  Strasbourg, 
and  in  whose  little  circle  Goethe  detected  a  strong 
resemblance  to  the  family  of  Dr.  Primrose  in  the 
"Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  a  book  which,  at  Herder's  insti- 
gation, he  had  just  then  been  reading.  His  theatrical 
instincts  were  clearly  displayed  in  his  connection  with 
this  family.  He  first  appeared  in  the  character  of  a 
poor  student  in  theology ;  then  he  "  dressed  up  "  as 
the  "  innkeeper's  boy ; "  and  finally  he  appeared  as 
Dr.  Goethe  himself.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  pastor's 
youngest  daughter,  in  whom  he  thought  he  saw  a 
resemblance  to  Goldsmith's  Sophia,  fell  passionately 
in  love  with  him.  Then  ensued  the  same  result  as  in 
the  case  of  Annchen,  in  Leipzig,  with  the  exception 
that  in  the  first  case  his  treatment  had  quite  alienated 
the  lady.  Directly  he  had  won  this  poor  girl's  heart 
Goethe  began  to  repent,  and  the  more  her  passion 
deepened  the  more  he  drew  back  and  trembled.  It 
was  clear  that  he  did  not  love  her  ;  but  it  was  also 
clear  that  he  had  wilfully  won  her  heart.  He  deter- 
mined to  say  "good-bye,"  and  he  gives  us  quite  a 
pretty  artistic  picture  of  the  "  situation,"  which  he, 
with  his  everlasting  double  identity,  seemed  to  enjoy 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GO  ETUI..  59 

as  spectator  as  well  as  actor.  It  was  quite  an  effec- 
tive stage-parting1,  quiet,  but  powerful.  "  I  reached 
her  my  hand  from  my  horse ;  the  tears  stood  in  her 
eyes,  and  I  felt  very  uneasy. yt  Much  as  he  fretted 
over  the  injury  he  had  done  (for  Goethe  could  never 
bear  to  be  troubled  even  with  his  own  conscience,  and 
it  reproached  him  often  enough),  he  rejoices  in  his 
triumph  over  his  first  inclination  for  the  maiden,  and 
calculates  with  delight  that,  by  stifling  it  thus  early, 
he  prevented  himself  from  losing  "  two  years  of  his 
time." 

The  first  decided  step  was  taken,  as  I  have  said, 
and  the  preacher  of  the  "  Gospel  of  Economy/'  as 
Novalis  calls  it,*  saved  his  soul  for  literature.  This 
was  his  first  hardening.  He  was  never  after  that 
inclined  to  let  his  passion  get  the  better  of  him,  much 
as  he  enjoyed  the  foam  and  fury  of  it,  and  its  dainty 
flavour.  The  usual  criticism  on  the  whole  situation 
is  that  Goethe  was  already  resolved  to  make  any 
sacrifice  in  order  to  bear  "  higher  the  pyramid  of  his 
existence."  My  own  belief  is  that  this  pyramid- 
building  was  an  after-thought^  used  by  Goethe  in 
fighting  with  his  own  sense  of  moral  littleness.  The 
simple  truth,  as  I  believe  it  to  have  been,  is  that 
Goethe's  conduct  was  far  less  owing  to  tremendous 
calculations  of  self-culture  than  to  simple  want  of 
earnestness  in  any  of  the  concerns  of  life,  added  to  a 
tremendous  aesthetic  horror  of  that  most  unpicturesquc 
of  all  things — matrimony,  as  practised  in  modern 
Germany.  Throughout  his  whole  career  he  never 
allowed  any  one  feeling  to  strike  deep  root.  He  care- 
fully watered  his  sentiments,  trained  his  virtues  (such 


*  See  "  Aesthetik  und  Literatur,"  p.  183,  vol.  i.  of  Tieck  and 
Schlegel's  edition  of  Novalis. 


60  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

as  they  were),  daintily  enjoyed  his  tastes — made,  in 
fact,  a  sort  of  back-garden  of  his  affections,  whither 
he  could  retire  without  any  danger  of  being  bored  by 
the  world,  and  where  all  was  fine  weather  and  perfect 
shade.  He  had  celebrated  his  affair  with  Annchen 
in  "Die  Launedes  Verliebten,"  where  he  is  personified 
under  the  affected  title  of  Eridon,  and  he  adopted  a 
similar  theatrical  attitude  after  the  Frederika  episode, 
took  Nature  into  his  confidence,  and  wrote,  besides 
many  less  affected  lyrics,  the  wild  "Wanderers 
Sturmlied,"  of  which  the  two  marked  characteristics 
are  inordinate  self-satisfaction,  and  utterly  heathen 
affectation  : 

Wen  dunicht  verlassest,  Genius, 
Nicht  der  Regen,  nicht  der  Sturm 
Haucht  ihm  Schauer  iiber's  Herz. 
Wen  du  nicht  verlassest,  Genius, 
Wird  die  Regengewolk, 
Wird  dem  Schlossensturm 
Entgegen  singen, 
Wie  die  Lerche, 
Du  da  droben ! 

And  so  on,  with  a  great  deal  of  Goethe,  Anacreon, 
Theocritus,  and  Jupiter  Pluvius,  with  plenty  of  writing 
which  shows  the  animal  spirits  and  conceit  of  a  very 
young  man  anxious  to  vindicate  bad  conduct  on  the 
plea  of  genius,  but  not  one  note  of  genuine  feeling 
throughout,  or  even  a  word  indicative  of  conscious 
"pyramid-building."  Nor  is  there  much  feeling  in 
the  "  Farewell,"  *  supposed  to  be  written  about  the 
same  time.  The  fact  is,  Goethe's  very  liquid  feelings 
ran  always  readily  into  the  lyrical  glass,  and  sparkled 

*  These  musical  verses  are  to  be  found  among  Goethe's 
lyrics,  and  begin  : 

Let  mine  eyes  the  farewell  utter 
Which  my  lips  attempt  in  vain  !  etc. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.      61 

there,  with  ever  so  light  an  inspiration.  However, 
he  had  decided  for  himself  against  Frederika  and 
matrimony.  The  poor  clergyman's  daughter's  real 
rivals  were  Clara,  Gretchen,  Adelaide,  Mignon,  and 
the  rest  of  that  shadowy  troop  already  existing  in 
embryo.  From  first  to  last  he  hated  everything 
unpicturesque  and  slovenly,  and  he  knew  well,  and 
ever  remembered  with  quite  a  comical  horror,  how 
matrimony  takes  the  bloom  even  off  the  freshest  cheek, 
destroys  the  charming  mystery  which  surrounds  a 
woman  as  with  angelic  drapery,  and  renders  even 
passion  tawdry  with  repeated  indulgence.  More  than 
most  men  he  loved  to  sip  his  honey,  and  pass  on. 
Cordially  would  he  have  enjoyed  the  criticisms  of 
Balzac  on  married  people,  apropos  of  the  nuptial  life 
of  Madame  and  Monsieur  Jules  : — "  A  1'amour  d'un 
mari  qui  bailie,  se  presente  alors  une  femme  vraie,  qui 
bailie  aussi,  qui  vient  dans  un  desordre  sans  elegance, 
coiffee  de  nuit  avec  un  bonnet  fripe,  celui  de  la  veille, 
celui  du  lendemain/7*  etc.;  for  he  had  Balzac's  own 
love  of  mysterious  elegance  and  rose-coloured  light. 
When  he  describes  Wilhelm  Meister's  feelings  of 
lurking  dissatisfaction  at  the  personal  untidiness  of 
Mariana,  whose  bower  of  bliss  was  adorned  with 
"  articles  appropriated  to  personal  cleanliness — 
combs,  soap,  and  towels,"  and  "  with  water  and  flowers, 
needle-cases,  hair  pins,  rouge  pots,  and  ribbons,"  and 
when  he  describes  how  at  one  time  she  would  "  put 
aside  her  boddice  that  he  might  approach  the  piano," 
and  at  another,  "  place  her  gown  on  the  bed,  that  he 
might  provide  himself  with  a  chair,"  Goethe  himself, 
in  all  these  details,  is  evincing  his  own  morbid  horror 
of  the  revelations  of  domesticity.  He  loved  pretty 

*  "  Histoire  des  Treize." 


62  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

women  and  light  women — he  would  even  go  to  the 
length  of  temporarily  adoring  them  to  distraction— 
but  his  appetite  was  satisfied  with  sipping,  and  he 
never  seemed  to  desire,  like  rasher  lovers,  for  full 
possession.  Marriage  thus  repelled  him  on  the 
aesthetic  side,  and  we  scarcely  wonder,  seeing  what 
sort  of  wives  would  have  been  made  of  any  of  these 
women  typified  in  his  heroines.  Fancy  Goethe 
wedded  to  Mariana,  or  to  Ottilie,  or  even  to  Mignon  ! 
He  had  far  too  curious  and  fastidious  an  eye.  He 
would  have  wearied  of  Lili's  liveliness,  and  sickened 
of  Frederika's  sentiment.  Then  again  he  had  ascer- 
tained at  a  preternaturally  early  age  (and  this,  by  the 
way,  is  a  fact  so  unusual  and  strangely  unnatural, 
that  it  looks  not  only  like  genius,  but  diablerie),  that 
every  additional  human  tie,  however  delightful  in  the 
forming,  is  a  source  of  anxiety  and  irritation.  He 
feared  responsibility,  not  because  he  lacked  strength, 
but  because  he  was  a  moral  coward.  He  had  a 
morbid  horror  of  anything  which  disturbed  his 
equanimity.  By  what  series  of  bunglings  and  con- 
fusions he  resigned  himself  at  last,  after  full  fruition, 
into  the  arms  of  Christiane  Vulpius,  is  a  mystery  to 
this  hour. 

Being  naturally  of  Brother  Noyes'  way  of  think- 
ing, and  altogether  holding  that  man  cannot  "  exhaust 
his  power  of  loving  in  one  honeymoon,"*  he  soon 
steeled  his  heart  sufficiently  to  get  the  very  largest 
amount  of  pleasure  out  of  the  least  possible  amount 
of  responsibility.  He  did  not  often  insist  on  fruition 
— indeed,  he  avoided  it  as  dangerous  ;  and  he  enjoyed 
a  love  affair  on  paper  with  a  woman  he  never  saw, 
quite  as  much  as  his  flirtations  with  fair  creatures  in 

*  "  Modern  Socialism." 


THE  CHARACTER   OF  GOETHE.  63 

the   flesh — videlicet   his    Wertherian    epistles   to   the 
young  Countess  von  Stolberg. 

If  we  are  to  trust  his  own  account  in  the  "  Wahrhcit 
und  Dichtung,"  he  really  did  love  Lili.  He  describe- 
her  as  his  "first  real  love,  and  probably  his  last,  for 
he  was  afterwards  a  stranger  to  such  raptures  as  he 
then  knew."  This  young  lady  was  Friiulein  Anna 
Elizabeth  Schonemann,  daughter  of  a  fashionable 
widow  in  Frankfort,  a  lady  who  received  a  great  deal 
of  society,  and  was  supposed  to  occupy  a  far  higher 
sphere  than  Goethe,  although  he  had  then  an  enor- 
mous reputation  as  the  author  of  "  Gotz  von  Ber- 
lichingcn  "  and  the  "  Sorrows  of  Young  Werther." 
After  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  owing  to  the  social 
pride  of  the  Schonemann  family,  Goethe  was  be- 
trothed to  Lili ;  but  he  appears  to  have  been  much 
frightened  by  the  warnings  of  Lili's  married  sister, 
who  predicted  all  sorts  of  wretchedness,  and,  indeed, 
gave  the  young  lovers  clearly  to  understand,  on  the 
score  of  her  own  enormous  experience,  that  wedlock 
was  a  mistake  !  All  Goethe's  old  scruples  and  terrors 
of  responsibility  arose,  and  he  behaved  like  a  verit- 
able coward.  "  First  real  love  "  sounds  comically  in 
connection  with  his  own  narrative.  The  excitable  young 
gentleman  who  had  composed  fiery  "  Sturmlieder," 
and  was  the  author  of  all  the  frothy  sentimentalism 
and  Wertherism  of  the  period,  was  of  so  unromantic 
a  disposition  as  to  shrink  with  horror  when  Lili  pro- 
posed that  he  should  fly  in  her  company  to  America. 
Instead  of  doing  anything  so  desperate,  he  adopted 
the  remedy  he  had  discovered  in  poor  Frederika's 
case,  and  withdrew  from  the  scene  of  his  attachment, 
accompanying  the  Counts  Stolberg  to  Switzerland,  in 
order  to  break  off  the  engagement.  \Yhile  en  route, 
on  the  margin  of  the  lake  of  Zurich,  he  composed  the 


64  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

beautiful  lines  entitled,  "Auf  dem  See."  Hutton's 
version  of  this  poem  is  so  lovely  that  I  cannot 
neglect  the  opportunity  of  transcribing  it  here,  ex- 
pressing at  the  same  time  a  hope  that  the  translator 
will  some  day  gather  together  his  incidental  transla- 
tions from  Goethe  and  Heine,  since  they  are  beyond 
all  comparison  faithfuller  and  finer  than  any  others 
with  which  I  am  acquainted  : 

I  draw  new  milk  of  life,  fresh  blood, 

From  the  free  universe  ; 
Ah,  Nature,  it  is  all  too  good, 

Upon  thy  breast,  kind  nurse  ! 
Waves  rock  our  boat  in  equal  time 

With  the  clear  splashing  oar, 
And  cloudy  Alps  with  head  sublime 

Confront  us  from  the  shore. 

Eyes,  have  ye  forgot  your  yearning  ? 

Golden  dreams,  are  ye  returning  ? 
Gold  as  ye  are,  oh,  stay  above  ! — 

Here,  too,  is  life— here,  too,  is  love. 

Host  of  stars  are  blinking 

In  the  lake's  crystal  cup, 
Flowing  mists  are  drinking 

The  tow'ring  distance  up. 
Morning  winds  are  skimming 

Round  the  deep-shadow'd  bay, 
In  its  clear  mirror  swimming 

The  ripening  harvests  play. 

Dainty  as  this  poem  is,  it  contains  nothing  indica- 
tive of  special  emotion  ;  it  is  one  of  those  masterly 
pictures  in  which  Goethe  excelled,  and  which  he  most 
excelled  in  when  perfectly  tranquil.  "  I  allow  objects," 
he  used  to  say,  "  to  impress  themselves  peacefully 
upon  me  ;  afterwards  I  observe  the  impression,  and 
endeavour  to  reproduce  it  faithfully ;  in  this  lies  the 
secret  of  what  men  are  accustomed  to  call  the  gift  of 
genius."  Judging  from  all  the  poems  supposed  to  be 
addressed  to  Lili,  I  should  conceive  his  passion 


THE   CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.  6$ 

never  mastered  him  ;  they  are  very  lovely  and  very 
calm,  full  of  nice  pictures  of  that  "  Love  in  a  cottage  " 
which  the  writer  dreaded  so  much  in  reality.  The 
lines  called  "  Neue  Liebe,  neues  Leben,"  bear  the 
very  slightest  traces  of  excitement,  and  are  for  that 
reason  inferior ;  but  nothing  can  excel  the  calm  and 
gentle  beauty  of  such  poems  as  the  "  Wanderer," 
written  and  published  in  the  Gottingen  MUSCH 
Almanack,  and  expressive  of  his  "sorrow"  on  leaving 
Frederika.  Just  after  he  had  cast  aside  the  gentle 
girl  because  he  was  morbidly  afraid  of  marrying  her, 
he  could  exclaim  passionately  in  the  person  of  the 
"Wanderer": 

Farewell  ! 

O  Nature,  guide  my  steps  ! 

Oh,  guide  the  wanderer 

While  over  sepulchres 

Of  holy  bygone  times 

He  passes  ! 

Guide  him  to  shelter, 

Screened  from  the  North, 

And  where  the  sunlight  falls, 

Subdued  through  poplar  trees. 

And  when  I  couic, 

At  evening,  home 

To  my  cottage. 

Made  golden  by  the  sun's  last  rays, 

Let  me  embrace  a  wife  like  this, 

Her  infant  in  her  arms* 

The  poems  to  Lili  are  occupied  with  similar  senti- 
ments. Of  the  two  sets  of  lyrics,  those  occasioned 
by  Frederika  are  the  most  passionate,  take  the  "  \Yil- 
kommen  und  Abschied  "  as  an  example ;  but  both  break 
into  false  notes  wherever  the  real  language  of  fervid 
love  is  to  be  imitated.  Goethe  exhausted  his  true 
enthusiasm  very  early,  quite  as  early  as  Wilhelm 

*  Goethe's  "  Gedichte,"  vol.  n.  p.  129  (Kunst). 

F 


66  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Meister  exhausted  his,  and  possibly  through  a  similar 
circumstance.  However,  after  parting  with  Lili,  and 
flying  to  Switzerland,  he  got  no  further  than  the  top 
of  Mount  St.  Gothard,  where  he  suddenly  became 
home-sick.  He  returned  to  Frankfort,  was  forgiven 
by  Lili  at  once,  and  seemed  about  to  resign  himself 
to  matrimony,  when  suddenly  the  old  nervous  dread 
came  back  upon  him,  and,  coupled  with  the  want  of 
enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  the  Schonemann  family 
(who  appear  to  have  been  quite  as  inaccessible  and 
high-minded  as  the  "  family"  of  Mrs.  Micawber), 
made  him  slowly  but  surely  attempt  to  escape.  The 
engagement  was  broken  off,  and,  instead  of  enjoying 
the  honeymoon,  Goethe  began  to  write  "  Egmont." 

It  would  be  scarcely  worth  while  to  recapitulate 
these  very  tawdry  love  affairs,  if  my  object  was 
merely  to  repeat  the  old  savage  charges  against 
Goethe ;  but  my  object  is  far  different.  It  seems, 
nevertheless,  inconsistent  on  the  part  of  Goethe's 
admirers  to  defend  his  conduct  for  one  moment,  save 
on  the  score  that  no  other  sort  of  conduct  could  pos- 
sibly have  preceded  the  composition  of  his  great 
works.  If  his  life  was  necessary  to  his  works,  well 
and  good ;  only  eulogise  the  works,  and  admit  that 
his  life  was  bad.  So  far  from  being  a  creature  of 
inexorable  will  and  tremendous  perseverance,  Goethe 
was  about  the  most  plastic  piece  of  clay  that  ever 
came  out  in  the  rough  shape  from  Nature's  manu- 
factory. His  power  was  the  passive  power  of  allow- 
ing the  world  to  work  upon  him,  and  in  him,  and  out 
of  him,  pretty  well  as  it  pleased.  Susceptible  to 
every  impression,  he  was  specially  possessed  by 
none.  No  better  illustration  of  this  truth  could  be 
found  than  the  episode  with  Lili.  He  raves  and 
sings  of  "love  in  a  cottage,"  yet  he  has  a  morbid 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.      67 

dread  of  living  with  his  wife  in  her  father's  comfortable 
house.  He  enjoys  Lili's  society  tremendously,  while- 
he  is  in  it.  He  goes  to  Switzerland,  and  Nature 
almost  obliterates  love,  until  suddenly,  in  the  Mount 
St.  Gothard,  a  furious  impulse  induces  him  to  return 
home.  He  hies  home  to  Frankfort,  is  welcomed 
passionately,  and  immediately  his  mind  is  driven  back 
into  doubt  by  Lili's  relations.  Goethe  took  the  im- 
pression of  the  moment  like  wax,  and  kept  it  till 
another  impression  obliterated  it ;  and  it  was  this 
very  liability  to  many  influences  that  constituted  his 
strength  against  each  influence  in  particular. 

Wax  is  wax,  clay  is  clay;  and  Goethe's  mind 
was  composed  of  this,  not  of  marble.  He  had  mighty 
perseverance — in  moving  from  one  emotion  to 
another.  The  same  character  is  illustrated  in  his 
literary  productions  and  studies.  Their  variety  was 
caused  by  Goethe's  eternal  vigilance  in  changing  his 
objects  of  sympathy,  in  order  that  none  might  grow 
stale  and  wearisome.  His  powers  of  concentration 
were  so  fleeting  that  he  never  could  manufacture  a 
connected  plot  or  write  a  dramatic  whole,  and  that  it 
took  him  a  lifetime  to  patch  "Faust"  into  a  great 
poem.  He  wandered  from  one  idea  to  another,  from 
this  subject  to  that,  as  the  slow  wind  travels  over  a 
plain  in  summer.  He  was  subject  to  false  enthusiasm 
— of  Wertherism,  of"  Sturmliedism,"  of  medievalism, 
of  classicism;  but  all  these  moods  were  trivial  while 
they  lasted,  and  brief  in  duration. 

His  belief  in  Art  was  the  nearest  approach  to  a 
belief  that  ever  lingered  with  him  long ;  yet  even 
about  Art  he  was  sceptical ;  he  never  loved  it  as  it 
was  loved  by  the  weather-beaten,  ethical,  scrap-of- 
knowledge-crammed  soul  of  Schiller.  He  went  on 
and  on,  and  up  and  up,  chiefly  because  the  wave  of 

F    2 


68  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  world  floated  him  up  and  on.  By  just  a  slight 
change  of  circumstances  we  can  conceive  him  desert- 
ing literature  altogether.  He  would  have  made  an 
excellent  business  man,  a  first-class  artist,  a  tolerable 
parson,  a  successful  actor,  or  a  good  dancing-master. 
In  either  of  these  professions  he  would  have  found 
a  certain  play  for  his  flexible  genius,  and  would 
have  succeeded  in  adapting  himself  to  circumstances. 
It  was,  however,  specially  arranged  by  that  Pro- 
vidence which  had  charge  of  him,  that  he  should  go 
to  Weimar,  on  the  invitation  of  the  young  Duke ; 
and  go  he  did,  at  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  and  re- 
mained there,  more  or  less,  for  the  rest  of  his  days. 
We  know  a  little,  but  not  much,  of  his  life  there  ;  he 
would  never  publish  a  description  of  it,  but  to  all 
requests  that  he  would  do  so,  replied,  "  The  world 
may  know  what  I  have  been,  and  what  I  have  done, 
but  how  it  fared  with  the  man  Goethe  individually, 
will  ever  remain  my  secret."  Far  better  that  it  should 
remain  a  secret,  if,  as  I  surmise,  its  "tranquil  hap- 
piness "  was  a  mere  succession  of  selfish  indulgences 
and  aesthetic  ponderings.  We  all  know  what  the  life 
of  Weimar  was — how,  as  Schiller  said,  every  woman 
had  had  a  liaison,  and  how  the  young  Duke's  madcap 
freaks  alarmed  even  Goethe,  who  liked  to  enjoy  his 
wickedness  quietly,  and  never  frothed  his  champagne 
in  the  pouring  out.  In  his  conversations  with  Ecker- 
mann,  the  German  Boswell,  he  confessed  that  he 
indulged  in  many  love-affairs  during  his  first  years 
at  Weimar.  Lionised  by  all,  treated  as  a  veritable 
prince,  he  had  secured  the  summit  of  his  personal 
ambition.  Henceforth  all  ran  smoothly  with  him. 
He  had  fashioned  his  heart  to  supreme  polish,  so  that 
it  reflected  all  things  perfectly,  as  on  a  mirror  of 
burnished  steel.  Few  scruples  were  likely  to  trouble 


THE  CHARACTER   OF  GOETHE.  69 

him  now.  He  was  beyond  the  reach  of  annoyance 
from  any  future  Frederika  or  Lili.  The  "  pyramid  of 
his  existence"  now  occupied  his  entire  attention, 
and  kept  him  busy  till  the  day  of  his  death,  when,  in 
spite  of  all  his  pains,  it  tumbled  into  pieces  like  a 
house  of  cards. 


II. 
GOETHE'S   TORYISM. 

"  THE  cultivation  of  my  own  mind,"  writes  Wilhelm 
Meister  to  Werner,  "  has  been  secretly,  from  youth 
upwards,  my  wish  and  my  design.  This  purpose 
still  possesses  me ;  and  the  means  of  compassing  it 
are  constantly  growing  more  definite.  I  have  seen 
more  of  the  world  than  you  believe,  and  have  profited 
by  it  more  than  you  think.  Therefore,  take  some 
notice  of  my  words,  though  they  may  not  quite  chime 
in  with  your  way  of  thinking.  If  I  were  a  Nobleman, 
then  would  our  dispute  be  at  once  over ;  but  since  I 
am  a  Citizen  only,  I  must  go  my  own  way,  and  I 
only  hope  that  you  will  comprehend  me.  I  know 
not  how  it  may  be  in  foreign  lands,  but  in  Germany  a 
truly  liberal,  and,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  personaly 
education  is  possible  to  a  Nobleman  only.  A  Citizen 
can  become  distinguished,  and,  with  tremendous 
labour,  cultivate  his  mind  (Geist)  ;  but  his  personality 
is  lost  to  him,  do  what  he  may.  Since  the  Nobleman, 
by  constant  association  with  the  well-born,  necessarily 
cultivates  a  well-born  manner ;  which  manner  of  his, 
seeing  no  door  is  shut  against  him,  becomes  perfectly 


70  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

natural,  and  since  his  figure  and  his  person  are  valued 
alike  in  court  and  in  camp,  he  naturally  learns  to 
think  something  of  himself,  and  to  show  that  he 
thinks  something  of  himself.  A  certain  stately  grace 
in  performing  trifles,  and  a  certain  easy  eloquence  In 
grave  and  weighty  matters,  clothe  him  well,  because 
he  ever  lets  the  world  feel  that  he  is  thoroughly  at 
ease.  He  is  a  public  character,  and  the  more  culti- 
vated his  movements,  the  more  sonorous  his  voice, 
the  more  grave  and  reserved  his  whole  manners,  the 
more  consummate  he  becomes.  He  may  be  cold,  but 
he  is  sagacious  ;  he  may  be  cautious,  but  he  is  wise."* 
And  Wilhelm,  with  that  stupendous  high-pressure 
tutorial  power  which  so  distinguishes  him,  goes  on  to 
argue  that  being,  unhappily,  only  a  citizen,  he  has  no 
course  open  to  him  consistent  with  what  he  calls  "  the 
harmonious  cultivation  of  his  nature  "  but  to  go  upon 
the  stage  !  Into  these  further  considerations  I  cannot 
follow  him  ;  but  is  it  not  clear  that  the  above  pas- 
sage contains,  as  in  a  nut-shell,  pretty  much  Goethe's 
own  way  of  thinking  on  the  subject  of  which  he  is 
treating  ? 

He  was  a  Tory  by  temperament,  by  intellect,  by 
culture,  by  all  save  birth ;  a  man  who  conceived  him- 
self born  in  a  higher  and  calmer  sphere  than  that  of 
his  fellows,  and  who  resented  any  disturbance  of  that 
sphere  as  a  very  odious  piece  of  rudeness  and  vio- 
lence, to  be  serenely  "put  down."  The  harmonious 
culture  of  his  nature,  on  the  most  aristocratic  prin- 
ciples, was  the  sole  aim  of  his  life,  the  sole  subject 
of  his  literature.  He  was  never  a  vain  man,  in  the 
sense  of  being  hungry  for  popular  applause ;  so  far 
from  that,  he  walked  far  over  the  heads  of  the  multi- 

*  Wilhelm  Meister's  "  Lehrjahre,"  vol.  II.  chap.  iii. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.      71 

tude,  smiled  at  their  criticism,  and  took  their 
homage  as  very  interesting  and  very  natural  in  in- 
ferior beings ;  but  the  man  Goethe,  the  princely 
creature  who  walked  in  the  gardens  of  Weimar,  was 
to  him  a  far  more  interesting  subject  than  any  of  his 
works.  He  was  for  ever  posing  before  the  intel- 
lectual mirror,  with  a  view  to  the  improvement  of  his 
personality.  For  rank  of  all  sorts  he  had  the 
highest  reverence,  and  no  passages  in  his  writings 
are  more  nauseous  than  those  exhibiting  his  aristo- 
cratic predilections. 

His  manner  as  a  literary  Jupiter  became,  by  dili- 
gent cultivation,  truly  great,  though  verging  on 
pomposity.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  in  his  life  as  in  his 
works,  the  tiniest  pinch  of  Shakespearian  humour 
would  have  made  him  a  nobler  figure  and  a  mightier 
poet  If  he  had  but  once  got  a  peep  at  himself  from 
the  truly  divine  point  of  view,  that  of  human  Comedy, 
he  might  have  been  saved.  But  he  was  incapable 
of  true  humour.  As  a  play-writer  he  wrote  tra- 
gedies and  farces ;  never  comedies.  There  is  the 
very  tiniest  gleam  of  the  true  light  in  the  little 
passage  in  his  Autobiography  where  he  speaks  of  the 
stars  which  presided  over  his  nativity,  but  even  this 
dies  away  in  a  pompous  smile  ;  he  was  not  altogether 
sure  but  that  Jupiter  and  Venus,  or  the  principles 
those  planets  represented,  had  something  to  do  with 
the  matter !  Yet  Goethe,  building  up  his  pyramid, 
was  a  sight  to  make  Shakespeare  smile — and  angels 
weep. 

Forsaking  the  bourgeoisie  for  ever,  he  became  a 
member  of  the  society  at  Weimar,  selling  his  birth- 
right of  genius  for  a  place  at  the  Duke's  table  and  a 
share  of  the  Duke's  pleasures.  He  speedily  completed 
his  aristocratic  vocation,  and  became  a  veritable 


72  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Petronius  Arbiter  Goethe,  tutor  and  master  of  the 
Revels.  In  course  of  time,  his  naturally  theatrical 
nature  had  finally  decided  on  the  part  he  was  to  play 
for  the  remainder  of  his  life — that  of  Literary  Prince 
— and  when  he  was  ennobled,  in  1782,  he  was  already 
the  living  mirror  of  dilettante  aristocracy. 

It  seems  to  me  quite  confusing  confusion  to  at- 
tempt, as  all  Goethe's  apologists  attempt,  and  as  even 
Mr.  Hutton,  otherwise  unsympathetic,  is  led  to  at- 
tempt, to  divide  Goethe's  character  into  fragments — 
to  say,  for  example,  that  he  had  the  pride  of  power, 
but  not  the  pride  of  ostentation,  and  that  he  was 
generous  outside  the  sacrifice  of  his  own  individuality. 
A  man's  nature  is  a  man's  nature,  and  cannot  in  any 
possible  critical  crucible  be  transformed  into  an- 
other metal.  Goethe,  like  all  other  selfish  men,  was 
generous  in  everything  which  caused  him  no  serious 
personal  sacrifice;  he  could  give  away  money  liberally, 
for  example,  and  he  was  seldom  jealous  of  contempo- 
raries. He  had  a  heart  easily  moved  by  suffering  of 
any  sort ;  so  easily  moved  that  he  steeled  himself 
carefully  from  the  contemplation  of  all  human  pain, 
and  gradually,  I  believe,  conquered  his  natural 
sensitiveness  altogether.  He  was,  in  plain  words,  by 
nature  and  by  habit,  a  Pagan,  the  creator  of  modern 
Paganism.  So  far  as  he  was  concerned,  the  leading 
lesson  of  Christianity — that  sacrifice  for  others  is  a 
bliss  in  itself,  and  the  noblest  of  all  human  ends — 
might  never  have  been  taught  at  all. 

To  all  these  charges,  of  course,  there  is  a  ready 
and  a  trenchant  answer — a  silent  reference  to  Goethe's 
great  services  to  humanity  as  a  literary  creator;  and 
although  this  answer  has  been  used  so  often,  it  will 
be  used  again  and  again.  And  naturally  Humanity 
is  grateful.  But,  setting  altogether  aside,  in  the 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.  73 

meantime,  that  other  argument,  tremendous  in  its 
strength,  of  Goethe's  literary  offences  against  Humanity 
— of  the  pernicious  influence,  as  one  may  think,  of  the 
whole  Goethe-system  of  literature  and  aesthetics — let 
us  ask  ourselves  whether  Goethe  did  actually  sacrifice 
honestly  to  Art,  and  whether,  if  he  had  been  less  of  a 
courtier,  if  he  had  blurred  the  mirror  of  his  mind  less 
by  over-polish,  he  might  not  have  produced  far  higher 
literary  work,  and  lived  an  infinitely  nobler  life.  Here, 
again,  I  am  compelled  to  revert  to  my  former  defi- 
nition, and  remind  the  reader  that  Goethe's  nature 
was  a  plastic  and  a  theatrical  nature,  almost  always 
attitudinising  to  receive  the  new  impressions.  Natu- 
rally ready  to  take  one  impression  after  another,  he 
was  suffered  to  harden  in  the  bad  atmosphere  of 
Weimar  until  his  temporary  aristocratic  impressions 
became  fixed  for  life.  He  isolated  himself  thence- 
forward, and  the  world  scarcely  reached  him — else 
I  can  conceive  his  views  indefinitely  widening.  Note 
how  instantaneously,  when  he  ran  into  Italy  out  of 
Weimar,  and  beheld  the  great  monuments  of  antiquity, 
he  changed  all  his  ideas  of  Art,  cast  off  his  Medi- 
aevalism  in  one  moment,  and  embraced  Classicism. 
"  I  perceive,"  he  wrote,  "  after  many  years,  that  I  am 
like  an  architect  who  endeavours  to  rear  a  structure 
on  a  bad  foundation."  Indefatigable  in  fashioning 
his  thought  into  form,  he  wrote  his  "  Iphigenia." 

Yet  this,  indeed,  was  not  increasing  width  of  view  ; 
it  was  rather  the  cat-like  faculty  of  contracting  the 
eye-ball  to  gain  a  more  microscopic  power  of  vision. 
From  Wertherism  to  classicism  was  a  step  in  literature, 
perhaps  a  step  higher,  but  certainly  not  a  step  broader  ; 
and  there  is  far  more  genius  in  "  Gotz,"  with  all  its 
disjointedness,  than  in  the  statuesque  and  almost  life- 
less imitation  of  Greek  tragedy.  What  Goethe  wanted 


74  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

was  not  the  classicism  of  Italy,  nor  the  medievalism 
of  Germany  ;  it  was  something  far  more  startling  and 
chaotic — the  daimonic  Liberalism  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution.    This  might  have  possessed  him,  had  he  ever 
come  truly  under  its  influence ;  and,  had  it  done  so, 
it   would    at    least  have  blown  his   Toryism  to  the 
winds,   and   enabled   his   soul   not   only   to  feel  for 
humanity,  as  he  often  was  capable  of  doing,  but  to 
feel  with  it,  as  he  never  did  till  the  day  of  his  death ! 
He  had  no  decided  political  views,  but  on  the  whole 
inclined  to  believe  in  Despotism,  beneficent  Despotism 
of  his  own  sort,  embellished  with  all  the  graces  of  life, 
and  diligently  fostering  the  Arts.     The  great  wail  of 
the  world  would  never  reach  his  ear.     His  ear,  like 
his  eye,  was  microscopic;  he  saw  nothing  en  masse; 
he  heard  no  large  volumes  of  sound.     Minister  of  Art 
and  Science  at  Weimar,  Governor  of  the  Institute, 
the  Library,  and  the  Botanical  Garden,  what  had  he 
to  do  with  Revolutions,  save  only  the  revolution  of 
the  world  on  its  axis  and  the  revolution  of  fair  faces 
round  his  own  soul  ?     Politics  was  a  disturbing  ele- 
ment, and  he  waved  it  aside.     "  Weak  men,"  he  said,. 
"  have  often   revolutionary  ideas ;    they  fancy  they 
would  be  better  off  ungoverned,  and  never  feel  that 
they  are  incapable  of  governing  themselves ; "  and, 
again,   "All   men,   on   attaining  liberty,    exaggerate 
their  weaknesses  —  the   strong   become   savage,   the 
weak  cowardly."      To  him,  authority  was   in   itself 
beauty,  order  of  any  kind  almost  sacred.     In  child- 
hood ;his  hero  had   been   Frederick  the  Great — the 
immortal  Fritz — but   in   later  years,   when   he    was 
frozen  to  dilettanteism,  force  of  any  kind  repelled  him. 
When  Madame  de  Staiil  spoke  to  him  of  the  treason 
of  Moreau,  he  hurriedly  requested  her  to  change  the 
subject,   and   talk  about  something   more  pleasant- 


THE   CHARACTER   OF  GOET1IK.  75 

"  You  young  people/'  he  observed,  "  recover  quickly 
when  a  tragic  explosion  has  filled  you  with  momentary 
terror ;  but  we  old  fellows  are  right  to  protect  our- 
selves from  impressions  which  affect  us  powerfully, 
and  only  interfere  with  the  even  tenor  of  our  activity." 
On  another  occasion,  he  wrote  in  his  correspondence : 
— "  It  matters  little  in  what  degree  a  noble  man  finds 
himself,  as  long  as  he  understands  it  exactly,  and 
knows  how  to  fill  it.  All  precipitation  is  fatal ;  I 
don't  see  that  we  have  ever  gained  anything  by  leap- 
ing over  the  barriers  of  degree,  and  yet  nowadays  all 
is  precipitation ;  everybody  seems  trying  to  perform 
only  somersaults.  Do  your  best  in  your  place,  without 
troubling  yourself  about  the  confusion  which,  near  or 
far,  only  wastes  time  in  a  deplorable  way."  This 
is  teaching,  unfortunately,  very  familiar  to  modern 
readers,  from  the  savage  pessimism  of  Mr.  Carlyle, 
the  sweetness  and  light  of  Mr.  Arnold,  and  the 
aesthetics  of  Mr.  Ruskin  ;  and  it  has  a  certain  founda- 
tion in  common  sense,  in  so  far  as  mere  frothy  agita- 
tion is  useless  and  disturbing,  and  as  every  man  should 
cultivate  his  own  nature  as  diligently  as  he  can.  But 
Goethe  forgot,  and  Goethe's  disciples  forgot,  that  the 
world  would  have  made  small  progress  indeed  if  all 
men  had  been  of  their  way  of  thinking.  They  assume 
that  all  men  are  students,  or  ought  to  be  ;  whereas 
the  curse  of  modern  civilisation  is  the  growth  of  the 
purely  Student-class,  which  threatens,  with  its  isolated 
Toryism,  its  narrowness  of  critical  criterion,  its  in- 
difference to  complex  human  ties,  to  become  as  huge 
an  ulcer  on  the  mind  of  humanity  as  the  Priesthood 
has  ever  been.  Goethe  never  went  very  deep  in  his 
criterion  of  beauty  ;  he  was  far  too  "  economical "  of 
his  thought.  As  a  man  he  was  characterised  by  false 
enthusiasm  for  forms  of  life,  particularly  in  their  most 


76  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

superficial  aspects ;  but  he  never  penetrated — no  micro- 
scope can  ever  penetrate — to  the  lovely  significance 
cf  all  life. 

His  pictures  of  ordinary  humanity  are  full  of  false 
touches — e.g.  how  theatrical  is  the  attitudinising  of 
every  character  in  "  Hermann  and  Dorothea!"     Here 
is  a  true  genre-picture  ;  but  the  pose,  though  natural,  is 
thoroughly  a  pose.  During  that  memorable  picnic,which 
is  interrupted  by  the  appearance  of  the  robbers,  who 
seriously  wound  Wilhelm,  and  awaken  the  reader's 
eager  hope  that  they  have  silenced  the  Bore  for  ever, 
how  instantly  does  Wilhelm   Meister  seize   on   the 
theatrical  side  of  the  situation  and  "  imagine"  himself 
and  his  companions  a  wild  company  of  wanderers 
with  (of  course !)  himself  for  their   leader.      "  With 
this  feeling  he  addressed  each  member  of  the  party, 
and  coloured  the  momentary  fancy  as  poetically  as 
he  could."  *    Goethe,  like  Wilhelm,  was  ever  "  imagin- 
ing himself"  some  one  else  ;  but  he  never  went  pro- 
foundly into  that  some  "  one's  "  nature.     What  struck 
him  in  life  was  not  its  pathos  and  piteousness,  not  its 
subtle  means  of  happiness,  not   its   solemnity,  not, 
indeed,  its  higher  beauty ;  he  was  fascinated  by  its 
picturesqtieness ;  and  we,  too,  in  our  turn,  so  long  as 
we  are  reading  Goethe,  share  this  fascination.  Goethe 
has  been  called  a  great  philosopher :  and  so  he  may 
be,  if  a  philosopher  can  be  called  great  who  judges 
the  world  only  by  the  aesthetic  criterion.     I  rather 
prefer  to  believe  that  Goethe  was  the  greatest  Stage- 
Manager  of  the  literary  sort  that  ever  lived  ;  a  man 
whose    worldly    knowledge    was    wonderful,    whose 
sagacity  was  endless,  whose  power  of  taking  pains 
has  scarcely  ever  been  equalled,  but  whose  chief  claim 

*  Vol.  I.  book  iv.  chap.  v. 


THE   CHARACTER   OF  GOETHE.  77 

to  distinction  was  his  power  of  grouping  his  company 
of  performers  and  economising,  as  Novalis  would  say, 
the  resources  of  his  establishment.  His  philosophy  is  a 
philosophy  of  the  theatre,  his  ethics  are  the  ethics  of 
the  picturesque,his  religion  is  the  religion  of  the  denoue- 
ment. With  all  his  wondrous  resources  he  never  quite 
completes  the  illusion  of  the  spectator.  We  are  for  ever 
reminded  that  the  exquisite  scenery  is  only  painted, 
that  the  characters  who  utter  the  most  moral  plati- 
tudes may  be  the  most  immoral  and  unpleasant 
people  in  reality,  and  that  a  great  deal  is  being 
sacrificed  to  the  demands  of  the  "  situation/'  There 
is  no  chaos,  of  course  ;  everything  is  "  rehearsed  "  to 
perfection ;  we,  nevertheless,  grow  weary  of  the 
elaborate  completeness  of  every  detail,  of  the  "  so 
romantic  "  tone  of  the  leading  performers,  and  we 
acquire  a  certain  suspicion  that  even  the  actresses 
who  fascinate  us  most  are  only  actresses — Philinas 
playing  tender  parts  and  careful  to  conceal  their 
mischievousness.  It  is  fine  art,  and  good  art;  but  it 
is  Art  only.  We  long  once  again  to  meet  with 
characters  whose  life  is  "  being,"  and  not  "  seeming," 
and  who  are  less  conscious  of  the  effectiveness  of 
their  parts  and  attitudes.  Goethe  is  to  Shakespeare 
what  Goethe  is  to  Nature ;  and  against  Goethe, 
Nature  or  Shakespeare  is  the  only  antidote.  How 
fresh  blows  the  summer  wind  of  As  You  Like  It, 
after  the  close  "  hot-house  "  air  of  Egmont  and  Tasso! 
How  gladly  does  not  one  escape  from  Faust  to 
Hamlet,  from  Mephistopheles  to  Falstaff,  from  Philina 
and  even  Mignon  to  Rosalind  and  Cordelia ! 

This,  however,  is  anticipating.  My  present  object 
is  simply  to  suggest  that  Goethe  was  far  too  closely 
closeted  in  his  Weimar  days  to  be  affected  by  the 
shock  of  the  volcano  which  was  shaking  all  Europe. 


78  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

The  Revolution  impressed  him  as  a  horrible  tempest 
from  which  it  was  his  first  concern  to  screen  himself 
entirely.  He  would  as  soon  have  thought  it  his  duty 
to  go  to  sea  in  a  storm  and  be  thoroughly  sea-sick 
as  to  venture  into  the  wild  ocean  of  contemporary 
politics,  and  lose  one  day  of  his  precious  time  in 
rocking  up  and  down  on  the  billows.  Yet  I  doubt 
not  that  the  change,  though  unpleasant,  would  have 
done  him  good  in  the  end.  It  never  struck  him  that 
his  conduct  was  selfish,  any  more  than  it  might  occur 
to  a  seaman  that  stopping  in  harbour  in  windy 
weather  was  selfish.  His  business  in  life,  as  he  con- 
ceived, was  to  compose  pictures,  and  the  elements 
then  disturbing  the  world  were  too  chaotic  to  supply 
him  with  any  material.  He  embodied  his  first  feelings 
concerning  the  Revolution  in  a  play,  the  Great 
Cophta*  and  then  quietly  turned  to  other  matters. 
His  general  feelings  concerning  the  revolutionists  of 
the  period  are  best  expressed  in  the  course  of  the 
Intermezzo  of  Faust,  where  the  "Massive  Ones" 
come  stamping  down  everything,  and  are  sharply 
rebuked  by  Puck : 

Die  Massivcn.     Platz  und  Platz  ;  und  ringsherum  ! 

So  gehn  die  Graschen  nieder. 

Geister  kommen,  Geister  auch, 

Sie  haben  plumpe  Glieder. 
Puck.  Tretet  nicht  so  mastig  auf, 

Wie  Elephantenkalber  ! 

Und  der  Plumpst'  an  diesem  Tag 
Sey  Puck,  der  derbe,  selber. 

At  all  events,  Goethe  would  not  permit  the  "young 
elephants "    to   dance    in    his  garden.      When    the 

*  Founded  on  the  tale  of  "  Cagliostro  and  the  Diamond 
Necklace."  Goethe,  when  at  Italy,  took  the  pains  to  visit  the 
parents  of  Cagliostro,  and  to  interrogate  them  in  his  own  quiet, 
searching  way. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.      79 

Revolution  broke  out  in  all  its  fury,  he  was  far  too 
busy  with  the  management  of  the  Weimar  theatre 
to  have  much  time  to  spare  for  politics.     In  1792, 
however,  when    the   Prussians  began  their  wretched 
invasion    of    France,   the    Duke    of    Saxe    Weimar 
accompanied   them,  and  was  followed  by  his  privy 
counsellor.     Goethe  has  left  an  account  of  the  cam- 
paign.    He  appears   to  have   been   busily  engaged, 
during  all  the  horrors  of  the  war,  in  elaborating  his 
prismatic  theory  of  colours,  and  paying  far  less  atten- 
tion to  the  signs  of  the  times  than  to  the  "  Physics" 
of  Fischer.     Pursued   from   place   to   place   by   the 
"plague   of  microscopes,"   as   Emerson  calls   it,  he 
was  not  likely  to  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  vast 
plain  of  Europe,  then  the  scene  of  the  direst  calamity 
and  mightiest  commotion.     Not  that   he  was  blind 
to  the  horrors  of  war ;  he  was  far  too  easily  moved 
for  that ;  and  no  man  has  photographed  better  than 
he  the  sorrowful  details  of  War,  bit  by  bit,  figure  by 
figure.     In   his  own  calm  way,  too,  like   all   close- 
seeing  men,  he  deplored  its  waste  and  worthlessness. 
But   the   idea  of  a   Great  War,  such  as  Fichte  put 
before  the  students  of  Berlin,  was  beyond  his  sym- 
pathy ;    it   seemed   to  him   like  the  horrible  Earth- 
Geist    conjured    up    by   Faust  —  formless,    hideous, 
awakening   only   terror;    and,    as    a    titanic    Tory, 
engaged  constantly  in  detaching  the  discordant  ele- 
ments from  his  own  soul,  he  believed  that  men  would 
do  better  to  occupy  themselves  in  a  similar  manner, 
and  to  weed  their  natures  of  false  growths  of  cen- 
turies of  ignorance,  than   to  shatter  the  thrones  of 
Europe,  and  imperil  the  entire  fabric  of  things.     He 
quite   forgot,  and  wilfully  forgot — for   no  man  was 
better   capable  of   a  scientific    estimate   of   Revolu- 
tion than  Goethe — that  this  detaching  of  discordant 


8o  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

elements  and  weeding  out  of  false  growths  is  only 
possible  after  a  people  or  an  individual  has  gone 
through  the  preliminary  stage  of  tremendous  emo- 
tional agitation ;  after,  in  fact,  the  whole  soil  has  been 
loosened  by  the  shock  of  moral  earthquake.  The 
days  when  Goethe  loved  not  wisely,  but  too  well, 
when  he  was  passing  from  puberty  into  Wertherism, 
and  lived  a  life  wherein  passion  was  scarcely  distin- 
guishable from  affectation — the  days  when  the  author 
of  "Werther"  swaggered  into  salons  clinking  his 
spurs  and  carrying  his  riding-whip  in  his  hand,  and 
wearing  his  green  jerkin  buttoned  up  to  the  throat — 
the  days  of  dissipation,  folly,  affectation,  excitement 
— these  were  not  the  days  of  pyramid-building, 
weeding,  and  detaching,  but  they  prepared  his  some- 
what over-burthened  nature  for  what  was  to  come. 
Goethe,  having  once  emerged  from  a  crisis,  had  no 
mercy  for  it  afterwards.  It  was  not  quite  true,  though 
he  said  it,  that  Anarchy  had  always  been  more  hate- 
ful to  him  than  "even  Death."  He  said  so  when  he 
had  imbibed  into  his  soul  the  social  atmosphere  of 
Weimar,  when  he  had  Tasso  in  his  mind,  and  when 
he  was  standing  amazed,  so  to  speak,  before  the 
ancient  art  of  Italy.  He  had  never  been  constantly 
a  "  Massive  One  ; "  all  his  parts  were  chosen  for  their 
theatrical  effect,  and  that  part  did  not  tempt  him  ; 
but  he  had  been  an  "Elephant  Calf"  for  all  that, 
and  had  trampled  down  everything  in  his  way  quite 
in  the  revolutionary  spirit.  When  the  social  crash 
came  he  was  beyond  its  reach,  so  he  heard  it  com- 
paratively unmoved. 

Morally  speaking,  Goethe  was  by  this  time  in- 
curable. The  habit  of  "  preferences  "  for  women  had 
become  his  sole  inspiration,  without  which  his  faculty 
would  scarcely  act  at  all.  Never  did  Fichte,  in  his 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.      Si 

glorious  Transcendental  scheme,  make  a  greater 
blunder  than  when  he  exclaimed  that  "  the  One 
Eternal  Idea  assumes  a  new  and  hitherto  unknown 
form  in  each  individual  in  whom  it  comes  to  life,  and 
this  by  its  own  power  and  under  its  own  legislation, 
and  quite  independently  of  physical  nature  ;  conse- 
quently in  no  way  determined  thereto  by  sensuous 
individuality ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  abolishing  such 
individuality  altogether,  and  of  itself  alone  moulding 
the  ideal  individuality,  or,  as  it  may  more  properly  be 
called,  originality."  Goethe's  life  alone  is  enough  to 
upset  the  entire  theory.  Without  preliminary  sensuous 
agitation,  the  One  Eternal  Idea  seemed  to  have  no 
legislation  over  him  at  all,  and  his  Soul  was  entirely 
at  the  mercy  of  his  physical  nature.  In  his  case,  as 
in  that  of  Rousseau,  Science  alone  could  have  ex- 
plained the  secret  of  his  genius,  if  Science  had  been 
sufficiently  advanced  to  explain  sensuous  cerebellic 
action,  and  consequent  cerebral  activity.  God  could 
not  move  Goethe,  nor  could  Nature,  nor  revolution, 
nor  aspiration,  nor  intellectual  love.  None  of  these 
could  directly  move  him  ;  but  put  him  in  the  society 
of  a  fair  woman — of  the  Fraulein  Stein,  of  Fraulein 
Schonemann,  of  Frederika  Briou ;  titillate  him  ever 
so  slightly  by  sensuous  means — and  Goethe  moved  at 
once,  expanded,  soared,  found  a  thousand  ways  of 
expending  his  activity  on  the  world  at  large.  In  so 
far  as  this  activity  broke  forth  sensually,  it  impaired, 
paralysed,  and  limited  his  mental  activity;  but  where 
it  excited  without  fruition,  where  the  homunculus,  so 
to  speak,  agitated  the  back  part  of  the  brain,  and  the 
back  part  of  the  brain  in  its  turn  moved  the  mighty 
cerebral  mass  behind  what  the  hero-worshippers 
called  "that  impassive  Jupiter-like  brow" — this 
activity  so  engendered  took  an  absolute  form,  begot 


82  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

issue  as  thoroughly  in  the  way  of  nature  as  if  the 
actual  body  had  performed  its  part  and  directly 
engendered  offspring.  To  think  what  puppets  we 
are,  and  what  a  slender  string  it  is  that  moves  the 
mightiest  of  us !  Out  of  the  total  virility  of  that 
wonderful  mechanism  called  Goethe,  not  merely  out 
of  Goethe's  brain,  were  born  Mignon,  and  Faust,  and 
Clarchen,  and  Lothario,  all  the  troop  of  intellectual 
offspring,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  just  as  certainly 
as  was  born  Goethe's  only  son  in  the  flesh  by 
Christiane  Vulpius.  This  is  not  so  trifling  or  so 
obvious  a  fact  as  it  seems,  and  it  will  have  to  be 
borne  specially  in  mind  by  all  who  would  estimate 
the  true  nature,  extent,  and  operation  of  this  man's 
genius. 

But  to  form  a  Revolutionist  out  of  an  individuality 
like  this  was  obviously  out  of  the  question.  His 
Toryism  was  the  direct  consequence  of  his  mode  of 
intellectual  action.  He  needed  a  minute  influence, 
such  as  can  be  exerted  by  woman  only,  and  only  by 
women  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances ; 
not  a  massive  or  turbulent  influence,  which  would 
quite  have  destroyed  the  true  source  of  his  strength — 
that  of  conceiving  calmly,  and  tranquilly  shaping  his 
conceptions  into  endless  forms  of  positive  creation. 
This,  and  not  coldness  of  heart,  is  the  true  secret  of 
Goethe's  eternal  Toryism. 


THE   CHARACTER   OE  GOETHE.  83 

III. 
SOURCES   OF  AGITATION. 

ROUSSEAU'S  seed  had  borne  its  fruit  at  last ;  and 
men,  in  France  at  least,  had  gone  back  to  the  state  of 
nature,  only  taking  with  them,  unfortunately,  all  the 
passions  and  all  the  follies  which  had  been  accumu- 
lated for  them  through  centuries  of  unnatural  civilisa- 
tion. A  million  nameless  voices  had  raved,  a  hundred 
famous  voices  had  spoken.  Every  king  in  Europe 
was  shaking  in  his  throne  ;  and  a  cloud,  no  bigger 
than  the  prophet's  hand,  was  threatening  even  the 
Czar.  The  seed  which,  under  Washington's  care, 
had  sprung  to  fiery  flower,  had  been  brought  from 
America  by  Lafayette ;  in  one  night  (so  to  speak)  it 
had  overshadowed  France,  and  its  leaves  were  falling 
as  red  as  blood  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine.  Contem- 
porary with  the  discovery  that  all  monarchs  were 
shams,  that  most  institutions  were  abominable,  that 
the  priesthood  were  the  instruments  of  a  vile  and 
degrading  superstition,  had  arisen  the  philosophical 
formula  that  the  whole  theory  of  the  world  is 
exhausted  in  personal  existence,  that  experience  is 
the  only  criterion  of  knowledge,  and  that  religious 
faith  is  a  false  thing,  because  it  is  reducible  to  no 
experience  whatever.*  Fichte,  from  the  professorial 
chair,  defined  his  age  as  "the  third  epoch  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  the  epoch  of  liberation,  directly 
from  the  external  ruling  authority,  indirectly  from  the 
power  of  reason  or  instinct,  and  generally  from  reason 

*  We  get  the  old  dish  stewed  up  nowadays  piping  hot,  as 
if  quite  novel  ;  but  it  is  only  the  "  hash  "  of  yesterday's  idea. 

G    2 


84  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

in  any  form  :"  the  epoch,  in  other  words,  of  absolute 
indifference  to  all  truth,  and  of  entire  and  unrestrained 
licentiousness ;  the  epoch,  in  short,  as  Transcenden- 
talism called  it,  of  "  completed  sinfulness." 

Almost  contemporaneously  had  Philosophy  been 
revolutionised,  and  the  seed  of  Locke  had  sprung  into 
a  plant  of  gigantic  dimensions  and  double  nature. 
In  France,  the  school  of  Condillac  had  apotheosized 
Locke's  criterion  of  Sensation,  and  had  wandered  to 
the  very  confines  of  despair — through  Materialism  to 
the  glorification  of  physical  science  only,  and  thence 
to  the  open  denial  of  the  existence  of  the  Deity ; 
while  in  England,  on  the  other  hand,  Berkeley's  amaz- 
ing genius,  by  simply  turning  the  doctrine  of  experi- 
ence inside  out,  had  resolved  all  experience  into  mere 
Idealism,  a  form  of  procedure  which  Hume,  in  the 
notorious  "  Essay  on  Human  Nature,"  revenged  by 
applying  Berkeley's  method  of  analysis  to  Berkeley's 
ideal  phenomena,  and  cunningly  establishing  that 
thought,  reflection,  consciousness,  being  no  more  than 
the  fleeting  fabric  of  a  vision,  that  higher  life  of  man, 
which  we  call  Religion,  had  not  the  faintest  plea  for 
existence.  When  the  so-called  Scotch  school  had 
contributed  their  quota  of  "common  sense"  philo- 
sophy, Kant  arose  in  Germany  with  his  gigantic 
system  of  "  Categories,"  building  up  the  system  which 
iMchte  was  to  complete,  and  which  may  be  said  to 
have  revolutionised  the  whole  theory  of  human 
responsibility. 

Both  these  great  waves  of  progress — the  wave  of 
political  reorganisation,  and  the  wave  of  philosophical 
ulation  —  passed  by  Goethe  without  seriously 
affecting  his  development,  unless  as  sources  of  dis- 
turbance and  agitation,  varying  more  or  less  the  first 
business  of  his  life.  We  have  seen  how  he  withdrew 


THE   CHARACTER   OF  GOETHE.  85 

himself  as  much  as  possible  from  the  noise  of  the 
Revolution,  and  how  throughout  his  career  he  felt  a 
certain  repugnance  for  all  sorts  of  violent  political 
action.  "  We  are  justly  told,"  he  once  said  to 
Eckermann,  "  that  the  cultivation  in  common  of 
human  capacities  is  desirable,  and  also  the  most  im- 
portant of  aims.  But  man  was  not  born  for  that ; 
properly,  each  one  must  develop  himself  as  a  particular 
individual,  but  also  endeavour  to  gain  an  apprehen- 
sion of  what  all  are  collectively."  It  was  precisely 
this  idea  of  collective  Humanity,  and  of  the  aims 
which  all  human  beings  have  in  common,  that  Goethe 
was  all  his  life  losing  sight  of  more  or  less,  not  with- 
out injury  to  his  moral  nature.  But  of  a  narrower 
human  sentiment,  that  of  mere  nationality^  which  we 
men  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  have 
seen  apotheosized  as  perfectly  unselfish,  although  it 
obliterates  the  highest  political  thought  of  all — of 
this  lower  sentiment  Goethe  was  quite  capable — 
capable,  that  is  to  say,  of  party  Deutschthum,  or 
Germanism,  which  Frederick  the  Great  had  begun, 
which  Lessing  and  Klopstock  in  the  higher  literature, 
Stein  in  politics,  Arndt  in  poetry,  and  Jahn  in  prac- 
tical life,  were  creating,  fostering,  and  magnifying, 
and  which  Goethe  therefore,  in  a  half  serious,  half 
comic  manner,  distinctly  stamped  with  his  approval. 
As  Brander  sings  : 

Em  achter  Deutscher  Mann  mag  keinen  Franzen  leiden ! 

is  a  phrase  containing  this  lofty  political  feeling  in  a 
nutshell !  Judged  relatively  to  Goethe's  culture, 
however,  even  this  must  be  regarded  as  a  disturb- 
ing influence  :  his  heart  was  not  quite  with  Dcutsch- 
t/iiuti,  and  he  was  driven  into  it  by  the  contagion  of 
personal  friendship. 


86  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Then,  again,  as  to  the  other  disturbing  influences 
— that  of  philosophy  and  philosophers.* 

Pure  abstract  speculation  was  repugnant  to 
Goethe's  mind,  and  he  openly,  again  and  again, 
expressed  his  distrust  of  all  forms  of  such  specu- 
lation, especially  when  they  wandered  in  the  theo- 
logical direction.  Personally,  indeed,  his  sympathies 
were  with  the  glorification  of  Science,  in  the  widest 
significance  of  that  word  ;  but  he  declined  to  com- 
mit himself  even  there,  as  the  slightest  error  in 
phraseology  would  have  brought  upon  him  the 
charge  of  mere  Materialism.  More  than  once  in  his 
life  he  appeared  to  feel  a  positive  detestation  of 
philosophy,  and  it  was,  as  we  know,  the  object  of  his 
unsparing  satire  ;  and  in  the  "  Intermezzo,"  for  ex- 
ample, which  he  at  first  intended  to  publish  as 
a  direct  contemporary  squib  in  1798,  Orthodoxy, 


*  Spinoza  fascinated  him,  and  he  welcomed  the  first  gleams 
of  Fichte's  spiritual  mind.  The  latter  sent  him  the  u  Wissen- 
schaftlehre  "  and  received  this  reply  : 

"  What  you  have  sent  me  contains  nothing  which  I  do  not 
understand— or  at  least  believe  that  I  understand — nothing  that 
does  not  readily  harmonise  with  my  accustomed  way  of  thinking 
— and  I  see  the  hopes  which  I  had  derived  from  the  intro- 
duction already  fulfilled. 

"  In  my  opinion  you  will  confer  a  priceless  blessing  on  the 
human  race,  and  make  every  thinking  man  your  debtor,  by 
giving  a  scientific  foundation  to  that  upon  which  Nature  seems 
long  ago  to  have  quietly  agreed  with  herself.  For  myself,  I 
shall  owe  you  my  best  thanks  if  you  reconcile  me  to  the  philo- 
sophers, whom  I  cannot  do  without,  and  with  whom,  notwith- 
standing, I  never  could  unite. 

"  I  look  with  anxiety  for  the  continuation  of  your  work  to 
adjust  and  confirm  many  things  for  me,  and  I  hope,  when  you 
are  free  from  urgent  engagements,  to  speak  with  you  about 
several  matters,  the  prosecution  of  which  I  defer  until  I  clearly 
understand  how  that  which  I  hope  to  accomplish  may  har- 
monise with  what  we  have  to  expect  from  you." 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.      87 

Idealism,  and   Scepticism,  came   in  equally  for   his 
abuse : 

Prophete  rechts,  Prophete  links, 
Das  Welt-kind  in  der  Mitten ! 


This  was  the  situation  :  and  the  prophets  were  a 
subject  of  annoyance  to  the  "  world-child  " — Goethe. 
With  him  conception  was  synonymous  with  creation. 
His  thought  was  a  Form,  his  feeling  an  Image.  Science, 
History,  Society,  even  Politics,  were  capable  of  a  con- 
crete reflection  in  the  mirror  of  that  still  and  mighty 
mind ;  but  Philosophy,  since  she  cast  but  a  vague 
shadow,  only  disturbed  and  overclouded  his  natural 
powers  of  reflection  and  understanding. 

The  famous  passage  in  "  Faust,"  thus  translated 
by  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor  in  his  remarkable  trans- 
lation, has  been  accepted  by  the  world  of  critics 
at  large  as  fairly  representing  "  Goethe's  Creed  : " 


Faust.  My  darling,  who  shall  dare 

"  I  believe  in  God !  "  to  say  ? 

Ask  priest  or  sage  the  answer  to  declare, 

And  it  will  seem  a  mocking  play — 

A  sarcasm  on  the  asker. 

Margaret.  Then  thou  believ'st  it  not  ? 

Faust.          Hear  me  not  falsely,  sweetest  countenance  ! 

Who  dare  express  Him? 

Who  dare  profess  Him, 

Saying,  "  I  believe  in  Him  !  " 

Who  feeling,  seeing, 

Deny  His  being, 

Saying,  u  I  believe  Him  not ! " 

The  All-unfolding, 

The  All-upholding, 

Folds  and  upholds  He  not 

Thee,  me,  Himself? 

Arches  not  there  the  sky  above  us  ? 

Lies  not  beneath  us,  form,  the  earth  ; 

And  rise  not,  on  us  shining 

Friendly,  the  everlasting  stars  ? 

Look  I  not,  eye  to  eye,  on  thee, 


88  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

And  feel'st  not,  thronging 

To  head  and  heart,  the  Force, 

Still  weaving  its  eternal  secret 

Invisible,  visible,  round  thy  life, 

Vast  as  it  is,  fill  with  that  force  thy  heart, 

And  when  thou  in  the  feeling  wholly  blest  art, 

Call  it  then  what  thou  wilt — 

Call  it  Bliss  !  Heart !  Love  !  God  ! 

I  have  no  name  to  give  it ! 

Feeling  is  all  in  all  : 

The  name  is  sound  and  smoke, 

Obscuring  Heaven's  clear  glow. 
Margaret.  All  that  is  fine,  and  good  to  hear  it  so  ; 

Much  the  same  way  the  preacher  spoke, 

Only  with  slightly  different  phrases. 
Faust.         The  same  thing  in  all  places, 

All  hearts  that  beat  beneath  the  heavenly  day, 

Each  in  its  language,  say  ; 

Then  why  not  I  in  mine  as  well. 
Margaret.  To  hear  it  thus,  it  may  seem  passable, 

And  yet,  some  hitch  in't  there  must  be, 

For  thou  hast  no  Christianity. 

Faust  is  here  expressing  the  "  Immanence "  of 
Spinoza  in  very  loose  although  beautiful  language  ; 
but  Goethe,  although  he  found  much  in  Spinoza 
to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  his  nature,  was  not  the 
man  to  rest  contented  merely  with  Spinoza's  theo- 
logy. Very  finely,  in  1813,  he  expressed  himself  to 
Jacobi :  "  As  poet  and  artist  I  am  Polytheist ;  on 
the  other  hand,  as  a  student  of  Nature,  I  am 
Pantheist  ;  and  both  with  equal  positiveness.  When 
I  need  a  God  for  my  personal  nature,  as  a  moral  and 
spiritual  man,  He  also  exists  for  me.  The  heavenly 
and  the  earthly  things  are  such  an  immense  realm, 
that  it  can  only  be  grasped  by  the  collective  intel- 
ligence of  all  human  beings."  It  is  needless,  how- 
ever, to  observe  that  this  was  not  the  language  of  a 
man  who  had  any  strong  religious  cravings.  Goethe, 
in  fact,  approached  religion  from  the  outside,  accept- 
ing it  gratefully  as  a  subject,  and  so  far  it  minis- 


THE   CHARACTER   OF  GOETJIJ-.  89 

tered  to  his  moral  development ;  otherwise,  when 
it  forcibly  broke  upon  him  in  any  shape,  it  became  a 
hindrance  and  a  source  of  disturbance.* 

A  still  more  constant  source  of  disturbance  arose 
from  his  private  personal  relations.  His  habit  of  cold 
impassiveness  and  stately  reserve  grew  upon  him  at 
Weimar;  and  repelled  many  of  his  friends  who  were 
not  slow  to  express  their  irritation  in  words.  "  Out- 
side relations,"  he  said,  "make  our  existence,  and  at 
the  same  time  devastate  it;  nevertheless,  one  must 
withdraw  oneself  occasionally  from  study,  for  I 
don't  think  it  healthy  to  be  completely  isolated 
like  \Vieland."  Schiller,  faithful  to  him  as  he  was 
faithful  in  all  things,  was  rewarded  by  a  certain 
amount  of  confidence  ;  much  the  same  as  Goethe 
would  have  vouchsafed  to  a  clinging  mistress, 
Lili  or  Frederika  ;  and  when  Schiller  died,  the 
blow  went  straight  home  to  Goethe's  heart.  When 
the  aged  and  noble-minded  Klopstock  thought  fit  to 
remonstrate  on  the  disorderly  living  encouraged  by 


*  Note  also  the  following  from  the  "  Confessions:"  "  Jacobi's 
book  has  deeply  grieved  me;  and  how,  indeed,  can  I  have  any 
pleasure  in  finding  so  dear  a  friend  supporting  this  thesis:  that 
Nature  veils  God  from  our  view!  Penetrated  as  I  am,  by  a 
pure,  deep,  and  innate  method,  through  which  I  have  ever  seen 
God  in  Nature  and  Nature  in  God,  and  to  such  an  extent,  that 
this  conviction  is  the  base  of  my  entire  existence,  must  not  so 
narrow  and  absurd  a  paradox  separate  me  for  ever,  spiritually 
speaking,  from  a  man  whose  venerable  heart  I  cherish  so 
deeply?  Well!  I  take  care  not  to  be  overcome  altogether  by 
such  discouragement,  and  have  returned  again  with  double 
ardour  to  my  old  refuge — the  '  Ethics  of  Spinoza.'"  And  still 
more  beautifully  Goethe  writes  elsewhere,  that  "  No  being  can 
foil  into  nothingness.  The  Eternal  stirs  in  all  things.  Thou 
art,  be  happy  in  that  idea.  Being  is  eternal,  for  the  laws  of 
being  protect  the  treasures  of  life  with  which  the  universe 
clothes  itself."  Compare  with  these  remarks  the  weird  chorus 
of  the  Earth-Spirit  in  "  Faust: " 

u  In  Lebensfluten,  in  Thatensturm?"  etc. 


90  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Goethe  at  Weimar,  the  "  privy  councillor's  "  reply  was 
cold  and  keen  as  ice.  He  solicited  no  confidence 
and  he  tolerated  no  interference.  His  affectations — 
for  they  were  affectations — alienated  his  best  friends. 
"  What  the  devil  possesses  this  Wolfgang ! "  cried 
Mark,  a  friend  of  his  childhood  ;  "  why  on  earth  will 
he  play  the  courtier  and  the  valet-de-chambre  ? 
Has  he  nothing  better  to  do?"  And  the  same 
excitable  person  said  to  Goethe  himself,  "  Look 
here,  Goethe  1  when  I  compare  what  you  are  with 
what  you  might  have  been,  all  that  you  have  written 
seems  to  me  contemptible  ! "  But  his  most  trouble- 
some relations  appear  to  have  been  with  Herder. 
The  great  ideal  philosopher  and  the  great  poetic 
image-former  possessed  a  strange  attraction  for  each 
other,  by  virtue  of  the  individual  strength  of  each  ; 
yet  they  never  perfectly  comprehended  one  another, 
and  on  one  side,  at  least,  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
irritation.  They  met  for  the  first  time  at  Strasburg, 
when  Herder  was  twenty-two  years  of  age,  and 
Goethe  seventeen.  This  was  in  1766.  Twenty 
years  afterwards,  when  both  were  at  the  zenith  of 
fame,  when  Goethe's  name  was  a  household  word 
with  young  Germany,  and  Herder's  gigantic  vX»/ 
was  delighting  all  philosophers  of  the  old  school, 
Herder  had  not  yet  abandoned  the  air  of  patronage 
which  he  had  affected  to  his  junior  student,  and 
Goethe,  on  his  side,  had  not  forgotten  Herder's 
epigram  on  his  name  : 

Than  I  descendant  of  Gods^  or  of  Goths,  or  of  Gutters  !  (Koth.) 

There  was  no  love  lost  between  the  two ;  and 
their  mode  of  intercourse  was  rather  that  of  two  rival 
swordsmen  than  of  affectionate  friends.  On  the 
whole,  Goethe  seemed  rather  afraid  of  Herder's 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.      91 

mighty  mind,  knowing  well  that  its  great  scheme  of 
the  Universal  Idea,  with   all  its  practical  tendencies 
towards  Optimism  and  the  regeneration  of  Humanity, 
was  exactly  the  scheme  which  refused  admittance  to 
so  shallow  and  slight  a  theory  as  that  of  mere  self- 
culture  and  "  pyramid   building."     "  It   is  doubtful," 
Herder  once   cried   passionately,  apropos  of  Goethe's 
cold-bloodedness  and  affectation — "  it  is  doubtful  if 
a  man  has  any  right  to  raise  himself  to  a  sphere  where 
all   suffering,  true  or  false,  real  or  merely  imaginary, 
becomes  equal  to  him  ;  where  he  ceases  to  be  a  Man, 
if  he  does  not  cease  to  be  an  Artist ;  and  whether  this 
right,    once  admitted,  does   not   imply  the   absolute 
negation  of  human  character.     No  one  cares  to  envy 
the  gods  their  eternal  tranquillity  ;  they  may  regard 
everything  on  earth  as  a  mere  game,  the  chances  of 
which  they  direct  as  they  please.     But  we  are  men, 
men  subject  to  all  human  wants,  and  we  do  not  care 
to  be  amused  for  ever  with  theatrical  attitudes.     You 
study  Nature  in  all  her  phenomena,  from  the  hyssop 
to  the  cedar  of  Lebanon.     But  I  should  not  like  you, 
for  all  that,  to   conceal   from  me  the  most  beautiful 
phenomena  of  them  all — Man,    in    his    natural    and 
moral  grandeur."     To  the  same   effect,  though  with 
less  success,  protested  others — Wieland,  Jacobi,  even 
Schiller.     But    Goethe,   though   the  criticism    struck 
home,  was  not  to  be  moved.     Affectation  and  indiffer- 
ence, two  elements  quite  contrary  in  themselves,  had 
blended  together  to  form  the  one  pose  that  he  kept 
for  the  rest  of  his  life  :  a  pose  thoroughly  theatrical, 
as  Herder's  keen  eye  at  once  detected,  but  so  long 
used    as  to   become    natural   at    second    hand.      An 
earthquake  would  not  have  changed  it.     The  statue 
stood,  in  courtier's  costume,  calm,  holding  a  micro- 
scope.    A  thunderbolt  might  have  dashed  the  statue 


92  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

to  the  ground  ;  but  it  would  have  altered  nothing. 
To  alter  Goethe  now,  God  would  have  had  to  oblite- 
rate him  altogether. 

So  the  volcanoes  of  Europe  thundered,  and  the 
philosophers  of  Europe  reillumined  the  universe  of 
thought,  and  mistresses  wept,  and  friends  protested 
and  sneered,  but  still  the  statuesque  Titan  stood 
smiling  on  his  pedestal.  From  the  Revolution, 
Goethe  turned  to  his  "  Theory  of  Colours  ; "  from 
philosophy,  to  the  microscope  ;  and  passing  friend- 
ship aside  as  a  source  of  constant  disturbance, 
and  avoiding  a  true  union  for  the  same  reason,  he 
solemnised  his  marriage  with  Christiane  Vulpius,  just 
as  the  great  battle  of  Jena  was  taking  place  hard  by. 
"In  order  to  cheer  these  sad  days  with  a  festivity," 
he  wrote  to  Meyer,  "  I  and  my  little  home-friend 
(Hausfreundiri)  yesterday  resolved  to  enter  with  full 
formality  into  the  state  of  holy  matrimony,  with 
which  notification  I  entreat  you  to  send  us  a  good 
supply  of  butter  and  other  provisions  that  will  bear 
carnage."  Poor  Christiane  had  been  his  mistress  for 
seventeen  years,  and  had  borne  him  several  children, 
all  of  whom  died,  even  the  only  son  and  heir.  She 
was  very  pretty  when  Goethe  first  saw  her.  Latterly 
she  yielded  greatly  to  habits  of  intemperance.  "  What 
is  this  relation  ?  "  wrote  Goethe  to  the  Frau  von  Stein 
when  she  remonstrated  with  him  on  his  liaison  ;  "who 
is  beggared  by  it  ?  Who  lays  any  claim  to  the  feel- 
ings I  give  to  the  poor  creature  ?  Who  to  the  hours 
I  pass  with  her?  "  His  friends  despised  and  insulted 
her,  and  he  allowed  his  friends  to  despise  and  insult 
her.  Schiller  never  alluded  to  her.  Wieland  called 
her  son  the  son  of  the  servant  (der  So/in  der  Magd). 
Yet  she  was  never  weary  of  waiting  on  and  loving 
the  "  privy  councillor/'  as  she  ever  called  Goethe. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOETHE.  93 

"Who  would  think/'  he  said,  "  that  this  person  had 
already  lived  with  me  twenty  years  !  What  pleases 
me  in  her  is  that  no  change  takes  place  in  her  nature  ; 
she  remains  as  she  was."  One  day  as  they  were 
driving  in  the  country,  Christiane  had  an  apoplectic 
stroke,  and  lay  as  if  dead  in  the  vehicle.  Goethe 
ordered  the  coachman  to  drive  himself  home,  murmur- 
ing to  himself,  "  What  an  alarm  there  will  be  at  the 
house  when  we  draw  up,  and  they  see  this  person 
dead  in  the  carriage  !  " 

During  the  great  conference  of  powers  at  Erfurt, 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  made  himself  acquainted  with 
most  of  the  great  men  of  Weimar.  The  meeting  of 
the  Emperor  and  Goethe  is  thus  alluded  to  by  the 
present  writer  in  the  "  Drama  of  Kings  :  " 

But  yestermorn  the  old  man  Wieland  stood 

Knlarging  his  weak  vision  for  an  hour 

Upon  the  demigod,  who  of  Greece  and  Rome 

Talk'd  like  a  petulant  schoolboy  ;  and  this  day, 

I  beheld  Goethe  with  a  doubtful  face, 

Part  dubious  and  part  eager,  proof  of  thoughts 

Half  running  on  ahead,  half  lingering, 

Enter  the  quarters  of  the  Emperor  ; 

But  when  he  issued  forth  his  features  wore 

Their  pitiless  smile  of  perfect  self-delight, 

His  lips  already  quivered  with  a  pa?an, 

His  stately  march  was  quicken'd  eagerly, 

And  all  his  face  and  all  his  gait  alive 

With  glory  that  the  sun  of  Corsica 

Had  shone  upon  him  to  his  heart's  content. 

Goethe  was  much  fascinated  by  the  daimonic 
power  of  Napoleon,  and  from  that  day  forward  had  a 
firmer  faith  in  Despotism  ;  nor  can  we  wonder  at  the 
fact,  when  we  remember  his  Napoleonic  treatment  of 
politics,  philosophy,  friendship,  and  the  domestic 
idea— all  alike,  sources  of  disturbance  to  be  reprc 
at  all  hazards.  He  was  a  Napoleon  on  a  small  scab-, 


94  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

without  the  soldier's  plea,  or  the  excuse  of  national 
necessity.  Bonaparte  was  the  child  of  the  Revolution, 
welded  hard  and  unchangeable  by  very  fire,  and 
pushed  upward  and  onward  less  by  sheer  volition 
than  by  the  vast  European  wave  of  political  change ; 
he  had  mounted  the  popular  Monster,  and  although 
he  seemed  to  curb  and  drive  it,  it  took  him  pretty 
much  where  it  pleased ;  and  finally,  in  mercy  to 
the  man's  immortal  soul,  God  made  England  pitiless 
and  consigned  him  to  St.  Helena.  Goethe  had  less 
excuse  for  becoming  what  he  was  ;  indeed,  sheer  con- 
tractedness  of  soul  kept  him  what  he  was — a  subtle 
rather  than  a  great  European  literary  power,  and  of 
doubtful  value  to  the  world.  Unfortunately,  there 
was  no  St.  Helena  in  store  for  him.  He  died  with  a 
demand  for  "  more  light."*  Alas  !  had  light  been 
given  in  full  and  just  measure,  it  would  have  withered 
and  blinded  him.  His  life  is  a  melancholy  subject 
for  human  contemplation,  so  sadly  here  and  there 
does  it  force  upon  us  the  truth  that  growth  is  not 
always  gain,  and  that  Art  works  less  by  giving  than 
by  hardening  and  cruelly  taking  away. 

Here  I  must  pause,  not  without  an  apology  to 
the  hero-worshipper  for  the  form  of  some  of  my 
remarks  on  this  subject — a  subject  involving  in  its 
treatment  not  only  a  critical  estimate  of  the  lead- 
ing literary  man  of  modern  times,  but  an  examina- 
tion of  the  whole  critical  theory  of  modern  life.  If 
Goethe  was  wrong,  then  much  in  modern  life  is 
wrong ;  if  Goethe's  mind  was  physiologically  defec- 
tive, then  is  such  defect  noticeable  everywhere  in 
modern  society  and  literature.  But  let  it  not  be 

*  Goethe's  last  words,  "  Dass  mehr  Licht  hereinkomme." 


THE   CHARACTER   OF  GOETHI..  95 

hastily  assumed  that  I  am  ungrateful  to  Goethe's 
work  or  insensible  to  Goethe's  charm.  Before  that 
mighty  figure,  that  "Jupiter-like  brow/'  before  the 
total  result  of  that  vast  literary  life,  I  bow  again  and 
again  in  homage.  I  honour  Goethe  as  the  greatest 
literary  "  worker  "  of  modern  times.  The  character 
of  Goethe  I  do  not  honour,  as  I  have  shown.  But 
I  do  not  forget — nay,  I  would  emphatically  point 
out  at  parting — that  the  last  work  of  the  man  Goethe's 
hand  was  to  point  in  dying  acknowledgment  at  the 
figure  of  the  man  Jesus,  the  ideal  of  Christian 
Altruism.  The  crowning  human  joy  was  at  last 
recognised  as  self-abnegation — or,  as  it  is  expressed 
in  the  sublime  last  pages  of  the  second  Faust,  "  The 
draining  of  the  Marsh  !  "  Let  the  reader  now  turn  to 
those  pages,  and  perceive  how  at  last  even  he,  Goethe, 
the  would-be  Apostle  of  Egoism,  was  compelled  to  be 
absorbed,  as  every  human  force  is  absorbed  soon  or 
late,  into  the  divine  tendernesses  of  a  sacrificial 
gospel. 

NOTE.— This  article,  in  its  first  publication  some  years 
ago,  was  vigorously  assailed  by  a  certain  portion  of  the  press, 
and  my  old  friend  George  Henry  Lewes  made  it  the  subject  of  an 
especially  severe  animadversion.  The  truth  perhaps  lies  mid- 
way between  the  aggressive  Jacobinism  of  my  criticism  and  the 
exaggerated  Goethe- worship  of  modern  men  of  letters.  It  should 
be  remembered,  however,  that  the  foregoing  does  not  pretend 
to  be  an  exhaustive  estimate  of  Goethe  as  a  poet.  As  a  poet, 
Goethe  comes  to  us,  not  like  Shakespeare  in  native  strength 
and  majesty,  but  like  a  first-class  master  of  the  ceremonies  with 
excellent  credentials.  His  poems,  with  the  exception  of  "  Faust" 
and  certain  of  the  ballads,  have  been  accepted  because  they 
have  been  strongly  "recommended"  by  the  best  judges.  "Faust" 
alone  has  mastered  the  popular  heart  by  the  sheer  strength  of 
genius,  and  "Faust"  alone,  when  all  the  rest  is  forgotten,  will 
entitle  its  author  to  a  place  in  the  world's  literary  Pantheon. 

R.  B. 


A   NOTE   ON    LUCRETIUS. 


"  INSTEAD  of  God,  the  whirlwind  reigns"  ('Ai/rl 
Ali/oy  £ao-tAe'ue«),  says  Aristophanes,  in  the  "  Clouds ;"  to 
which  may  be  added,  in  the  words  of  a  sadder  and 
sublimer  thinker,  "Wo  keine  Gotter  sind,  walten 
Gespenster."  *  According  to  the  philosophers  who 
plume  themselves  on  having  annihilated  the  Deity, 
Matter  is  come  again,  but  in  the  very  midst  of  Matter 
strut  our  modern  "  spectres  "  of  the  scientific  lecture- 
room — the  ATOMS.  What  a  "  whirlwind  "  !  We  hold 
our  breath  and  stop  our  ears;  we  shut  our  Bibles,  if 
we  have  any,  and  prepare  our  instruments  ;  we  look 
this  way  and  that  through  a  great  darkness,  and 
watch  the  fluent  Tyndall  declaiming,  the  otiose 
Huxley  intoning,  the  silent  Spencer  musing  finger  to 
forehead  and  smiling  knowingly  at  the  Unknowable. 
There  is  darkness,  and  a  great  explosion  of  gases. 
The  wise  ones  are  imperfectly  agreed  among  them- 
selves. Peripatetic  and  epicurean  dispute  on  points 
of  detail,  as  they  did  long  ago.  Theologians  rush  in 
where  laymen  fear  to  tread,  and  call  incontinently  on 
the  Unconditioned.  Amid  the  clamour  of  names  and 

*  Novalis. 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  97 

things,  amid  the  whirlwind  which  already  threatens 
to  blow  the  roofs  off  all  our  churches  and  carry  away 
one-half  of  our  libraries,  one  word  we  hear  distinctly 
pronounced  with  reverence  again  and  again,  one 
name  we  hear,  almost  forgotten  by  all  save  students, 
until  eager  scientific  dreamers  recalled  it  in  order  to 
give  its  owner  his  apotheosis — one  name  of  a  dead 
poet — LUCRETIUS,  the  singer  and  expounder  of  the 
Cosmic  "  Nature  of  Things." 

Just  as  Democritus  has  dethroned  Plato,  Lucre- 
tius is  dethroning — whom  shall  we  say,  when  our 
choice  of  pagan  theogonists  is  so  limited  ? — well, 
^Eschylus.  We  have  discovered  that  the  real  poet 
after  our  own  hearts  is  not  one  who  can  sing  to  us  in 
noble  numbers  of  superhuman  endurance  and  the 
wrath  of  gods,  of  mighty  ideals  shattered  or  up- 
raised by  divine  destroyers  and  demi-divine  inter- 
cessors ;  nay,  that  we  infinitely  prefer  a  poet  who  can 
tell  us  in  voluminous  numbers  how  "  nothing  was 
ever  begotten  out  of  nothing  by  divine  aid,"  how  flesh 
is  grass,  and  all  things,  like  the  flowers,  must  dis- 
appear; how  and  in  what  measure  we  may  conduct 
the  breed  of  the  human  species  ;  and  how,  finally  and 
chiefly,  we  can  give  the  liliputian  ATOMS  their  just 
due  as  the  creators  of  both  protoplasm  and  poetry, 
substance,  sense,  and  Soul.  We  wanted  just  such  a 
poet  for  this  period,  and  so,  going  back  to  B.C.  99,  we 
find  him  ready  made — a  "cosmic  creature,"  as  musical 
as  need  be  to  ears  unattuned  to  the  hexameters  of 
Virgil,  and  as  explicit  in  his  physiological  explanations 
as  Walt  Whitman ;  a  great,  indeed,  and  an  eminently 
sincere  poet,  with  the  splendid  qualification  of  never 
even  having  heard  of  that  "  obstruction,"  Christianity ; 
just,  in  fine,  such  a  singer  as  our  own  Tyndall  would  be, 
if  the  Professor  would  only  put  his  ornate  periods  into 

H 


98  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  flowery  fetters  of  rhyme.  Of  course,  and  as  the 
reader  may  conceive,  he  could  not  be  always  right, 
living  as  he  did  before  the  birth  of  Science,  but  his  book 
is  universally  admitted  to  be  wonderfully  "correct"  in 
essentials,  and  a  sublime  specimen  of  what  is  now 
termed  the  "scientific"  imagination.  We  know  now  that 
the  ATOMS,  which  he  dreamed  of,  are  acknowledged 
facts ;  and  if  we  only  bridge  over  the  gulf  between 
his  two  first  books  and  the  other  four  by  a  few  scien- 
tific links,  such  as  "  protoplasm/'  we  shall  find  in  the 
"  De  Rerum  Natura  "  an  admirable  exposition  of  the 
History  of  Creation,  as  far  as  we  can  at  present  under- 
stand it.  If  the  end  of  the  fourth  book  is  expurgated, 
the  book  will  do  to  read  even  in  young  ladies'  colleges. 
For  those  who  find  a  poem  fatiguing  which  contains 
no  imaginative  pictures  of  the  supernatural,  we  may 
point  out  the  memorable  dedication  to  Venus, 

./Eneadum  genetrix,  hominum  divumque  voluptas, 

as  an  admirable  substitute  (somewhat  out  of  place,  it 
is  true,  in  so  precise  a  production)  for  any  of  those 
absurd  religious  conceptions  with  which  we  are 
familiar. 

It  is  time  to  be  serious  ;  and  lest  the  critic  of  the 
period,  ever  on  the  look-out  for  heresy  against  the 
spirit  of  the  laboratory,  should  accuse  me  of  treating 
a  great  and  influential  poet  with  irreverence,  let  me 
confess  at  once  my  deep  and  profound  admiration 
for  the  poet  in  question.  So  far  from  grudging  him 
his  apotheosis,  in  which  even  Bishops  cordially  assist, 
I  rejoice  over  it  as  another  token  that  justice,  poetic 
or  non-poetic,  is  done  to  all  great  thinkers  sooner  or 
later.  I  welcome  even  the  Atoms,  and  the  volu- 
minous literature  the  little  semina  have  created. 
I  cordially  agree  with  Dryden,  who  criticised 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  99 

nothing  that  he  did  not  illuminate,  and  who  has  left 
us  the  best  criticism  of  this  author  extant,  that 
Lucretius  possessed  a  "sublime  and  daring  genius,"  to 
which,  let  me  add,  no  amount  of  study  can  do  too  much 
honour.  Who  that  remembers  the  lovely  glimpses 
of  nature  so  frequently  given  as  we  traverse  the  arid 
track  of  Materialism  over  which  he  leads  us,  can 
doubt  the  "  genius/'  or  deny  that  it  is  "  sublime "  ? 
Sometimes,  indeed,  when  I  remember  such  pictures, 
I  am  inclined  to  place  Lucretius  higher  than  a  final 
judgment  may  prove  warrantable.  As  I  behold  the 
clouds  above  me, 

Dant  etiam  sonitum  patuli  super  sequora  mundi ; 

and  the  "ccerulean  of  the  great  universe"  and  the 
vast  tract  of  the  ocean  at  my  feet, 

Maxima  qua  nunc  se  ponti  plaga  ccerula  tendit; 

and  the  "  daedal  Earth  yielding  up  her  flowers," 

Tibi  suaves  dasdala*  tellus 
Submittit  flores  ; 

and  in  dark  solitary  places  beneath  the  "  shadows  of 
Orcus  and  hateful  pools," 

An  tenebras  Orci  visat  vastasque  lacunas  ; 
and  the  "  flaming  walls  of  the  world," 

Flamantia  moenia  mundi ; 
and  beyond  that  even,  the  "divine  shores  of  light," 

Dias  in  luminis  oras  ; 
so  I  know  by  these  and  many  other  tokens,  beautiful 


*  Mr.  Munro  translates  this  into  "  manifold  of  works,"  but 
surely  he  might  have  adopted  the  actual  equivalent  so  repeatedly 
used  by  Shelley.  Thus  : 

Through  thee  the  daedal  Earth 
Brings  forth  fresh  flowers. 

H    2 


100 


A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 


and  musical  exceedingly,  that  a  Poet  is  guiding  me, 
not  a  peripatetic  Pedant  pale  with  joy  of  the  dis- 
covery that  the  moon  is  not  green  cheese.  Nay,  I 
forget,  amid  such  glimpses,  that  a  Lucretius  leads  me 
and  not  a  Virgil,  and  that  I  am  being  guided — dare 
I  say  it  under  the  new  scientific  Inquisition  ?— 
through  an  Inferno.  It  is  only  when  my  foot  falls 
on  the  dark  graves  beneath  it,  when  my  breath 
inhales  the  lowest  atmosphere  of  a  poem  which  begins 
with  a  parody  and  ends  with  a  pestilence ;  it  is  only 
when  the  ATOMS  darken  the  vision  and  perplex  the 
judgment,  that  I  know  I  am  visiting  an  Inferno 
indeed,  and  cry  pitifully  with  Dryden, — our  guide  "is 
so  bent  on  making  us  a  materialist,  and  teaching  us 
to  defy  an  invisible  power — in  short,  he  is  so  much  an 
Atheist,  that  he  sometimes  forgets  he  is  a  Poet!3 

It  is  perhaps  too  much  to  assume  in  the  ordinary 

English    reader,    for    whom    I    write,    any    special 

acquaintance  with  Lucretius  and  his  writings  ;  and  it 

has  seemed  to  me  likely  that  a  short  sketch  of  the 

poem,  with  a  few  remarks  en  passant  on  its  bearing 

towards  modern  thought,  may  not  be  unacceptable. 

Far  be   from  one,   whose   scientific   pretensions  are 

infinitely  modest,  to  wear  and  tear  the  reader  with 

another   disquisition  on  the   Atomic  Theory;    even 

were  I  armed    and    ready  for  such   work,  I  should 

not  attempt  it  under  the  Inquisition,  when  the  next 

unpardonable  sin  to  believing  in  a  Deity  is  to  offer 

any  reasons  for  so  believing,  and  when  even  a  semi- 

scientist  like  Mr.  Lewes  is  listened  to  with  ill-disguised 

contempt,  simply  because  he  has  not  spent  even  his 

suckling-time  in  a  laboratory.      My  attempt  is  much 

humbler  on  the  present  occasion.      I  shall  be  very 

respectful  to  the  Atoms,  and  accept  any  explanation 

of    their    existence    which    their     disciples — I    was 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  101 

going  to  say  their  creators  ! — are  willing  to  give  me  : 
I  shall  touch  very  delicately  on  Evolution,  and  not 
at  all,  perhaps,  on  Protoplasm  ;  and  when  I  have 
given  my  brief  account  of  Lucretius  and  his  poem, 
1  shall  only  suggest,  in  the  most  reverential  manner 
jjossible,  that  good  poetry  was  never  wasted  on  a 
worse  subject,  and  that,  if  this  is  the  most  poetic 
solution  of  Creation  that  MATERIALISM  has  to  offer 
us,  the  world  will  feel  itself  justified,  pace  Professor 
Tyndall,  in  resuscitating  some  Poet  of  SPIRITUALISM 
as  soon  as  possible ! 

Our  poet  begins,  as  I  have  said,  with  a  parody — 
the  memorable  address  to  Venus  ;  and  the  picture  he 
draws  of  her  power  is  very  beautiful.  She  is  the 
divine  spirit  of  things  ;  all  follow  her  and  obey  her, 
the  winds,  the  clouds  of  heaven,  the  flowers  of  earth, 
the  waves  of  ocean  smiling  at  her  advent,  and  heaven 
rejoicing  in  her  light.  That  his  picture  may  not  be 
too  insubstantial,  he  describes  her  with  Mars  lying 
at  her  feet,  looking  up  at  her  in  passion,  while  his 
breath  is  lingering  on  her  lips  ;  and — O  si  sic  omnia  ! 
—he  begs  her,  in  her  own  lovely  language,  to  buy 
peace  for  Rome,  that  he  may  quietly  sing  to  Memmius 
of  the  wonderful  Nature  of  Things.  The  style  of  this 
invocation  is  at  once  Homeric  and  Virgilian ;  it  is 
both  simple  and  ornate  ;  but  it  is,  in  the  highest 
sense,  a  parody,  because  it  is  the  mere  imitative  con- 
juration of  a  divine  entity  in  whom  the  singer  has  no 
faith.  What  he  really  means  by  Venus,  despite  all 
his  beautiful  prelude,  is  made  explicit  enough  in 
Book  IV.  :— 

Sic  igitur  Veneris  qui  delis  accipit  ictus, 

Unde  feritur,  eo  tendit  gestitque  coire,  etc., 

Haec  Venus  est  nobis  !  hinc  autem  est  nomen  Amoris  ; 

Hinc  illaec  primum  Veneris  dulcedinis  in  cor 

Stillavit  gutta  et  successit  frigida  cura. 


102  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

This  "  alma  Venus/'  observe,  remembering  the  epi- 
gram of  Novalis,  is  the  first  of  the  Lucretian  "  Spec- 
tres." We  are  now  at  the  portals  of  Chaos  ;  passing 
which  rapidly,  we  at  once  see  the  darkness  gather- 
ing, but  are  detained  for  a  moment  while  the  Poet 
tells  us  of  the  curses  of  religion  and  the  blessings  of 
Epicurus : — 

When  human  life  lay  foully  desolate, 
Crush'd  'neath  Religion,  who  with  hideous  head 
Lower'd  horribly  from  all  the  gates  of  heaven, 
A  man  of  Greece  dared  to  uplift  his  eyes, 
And  braved  the  dreadful  Phantom  to  her  face  ! 
Him  neither  fables  of  the  gods  could  tame, 
Nor  thunderbolts,  nor  the  deep  roar  of  heaven. 
These  only  raised  fresh  hunger  in  his  soul 
To  be  the  first  to  break  with  mortal  hands 
The  bars  of  Nature's  yet  unopen'd  gate. 
He  conquered,  therefore,  by  the  living  will 
Within  his  soul ;  and  lo  !  he  swiftly  passed 
Far  out  beyond  the  flaming  walls  o'  the  world, 
Traversing  with  unconquerable  mind 
The  most  immeasurable  universe  ; 
From  whence  returning  victor,  he  expounds 
What  can,  what  cannot,  be,  explaining  clear 
The  principles  and  boundaries  of  things. 
Thus,  in  her  turn,  Religion  is  cast  down 
And  trampled  underfoot,  and  up  to  heaven 
We  soar,  exalted  by  his  victory  ! 

Thus  singing  I  am  haunted  by  a  fear 

That  thou*  may'st  deem  we  walk  unholy  ground, 

And  tread  upon  the  wicked  ways  of  sin  ; — 

Quite  otherwise  !  for  'tis  Religioris  self 

Who  is  the  mother  of  most  damned  deeds. 

Thus  once  at  Aulis  gather'd  mighty  chiefs, 

The  flower  of  Danai  and  the  first  of  men, 

Staining  with  Iphianassa's  gentle  blood 

The  thirsty  altars  of  the  Trivian  maid. 

Soon  as  the  fillet  clasped  her  virgin  hair, 

And  dropt  in  equal  length  down  each  pale  cheek, 

And  she  beheld  her  sire  stand  sorrowing 

Close  to  the  arch-priests  with  the  hidden  knife, 


Memmius. 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  103 

And  all  around  her  weeping  countrymen, 

Then,  dumb  with  horror,  dropping  on  her  knees, 

She  sank  upon  the  ground     .... 

What  could  it  then  avail  the  luckless  Maid 

That  first  her  lips  had  prattled  to  the  king 

The  name  of '  Father  ? '     Shrieking,  shivering, 

Uplifted  in  the  cruel  hands  of  men, 

She  straight  was  borne,  not  with  sweet  bridal  song 

And  solemn  rites  of  Love's  first  sacrifice, 

But  stain'd  while  stainless,  in  her  bridal  prime, 

There  on  the  bloody  altars  to  be  slain 

By  that  safe  father's  sacrificial  stroke — 

That  gods  might  give  the  Greeks  a  favouring  wind, 

And  prosper  well  the  sailing  of  the  fleet. 

Such  evils  evermore  to  mortal  men 
Religion  teaches !  * 

This  passage,  perhaps  the  most  striking  in  the  whole 
poem,  is  the  prelude  to  the  poet's  avowal  of  simple 
and  unvarnished  materialism.  Beginning  with  his 
first  and  cardinal  principle,  that  nothing  was  ever 
begotten  out  of  nothing  by  Divine  intervention, 

Nullam  rem  e  nihilo  gigni  divinitus  unquam, 

he  proceeds  to  pile  illustration  upon  illustration  of  this 
solemn  discovery.  I  need  not  follow  him  through 
his  long  catalogue ;  enough  to  say  that  he  is  entirely 
at  one  with  Professor  Tyndall  on  such  points  as  the 
efficacy  of  prayer.  That  the  laws  of  Nature  are  un- 
alterable, that  it  is  absolutely  decreed  what  each 
thing  can  do  and  what  it  cannot  do,  that  phenomena 
of  all  sorts  are  produced  by  natural  laws,  and  that 
nothing  whatever  can  happen  without  a  natural  cause, 


*  This  and  the  other  metrical  renderings  in  the  text  make 
no  pretence  to  constant  literal  correctness,  though  they  are 
often  pretty  close  for  a  free  translation.  Mr.  Munro's  unpunc- 
tuated  prose,  though  admirable  from  certain  points  of  view,  is, 
as  a  rule,  very  hard  to  follow,  and  too  full  of  attempts  to  get  an 
esoteric  and  laboured  meaning  out  of  single  words. 


104  A    LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

are  propositions  on  which  I  cordially  agree  with 
him, — and  so,  we  presume,  would  any  decently-culti- 
vated Bishop.  He  proceeds  forthwith  to  prove  the 
imperishability  of  matter  ;  next,  the  existence  of  Void 
(namque  est  in  rebus  inane],  without  which  Motion 
would  be  impossible ;  and  next,  that  Matter  and  Void 
compose  Nature,  and  that  nothing  beyond  these  exists. 
All  this  is  expressed  very  admirably,  with  as  much 
poetry  as  the  subject  is  capable  of  bearing,  and  more- 
over, melodiously — the  lines  making  the  hard,  regular, 
metallic  music  of  the  blows  of  a  smith's  hammer  on  his 
anvil.  We  are  now  face  to  face  with  the  Atoms,  or 
first  beginnings,  out  of  which  all  other  bodies,  how- 
ever simple,  are  fashioned ;  no  force  can  affect  them, 
they  are  indestructible  ;  while  all  things  we  behold 
around  us — even  iron,  stone,  brass,  marble — are  de- 
structible, consisting,  as  they  do,  of  Matter  and  Void. 
Thus,  the  Atoms  are  solid,  being  without  void.  While 
ever  entering  into  fresh  combinations,  they  remain 
the  same  for  ever.  They  are  perfectly  hard,  inde- 
structible, eternal.  To  paraphrase  Goethe,  "  the 
wonderful  eternal  Atoms  are  great  as  in  Creation's 
day."  Nevertheless,  they  are  invisible — lying  "far 
beneath  the  ken  of  sense  ;  "  and  yet  for  all  that,  they 
have  parts — each  part  being  so  small  that  it  has  never 
existed  and  can  never  exist  by  itself,  being  by  its  very 
nature  a  part  of  the  Atom.* 


*  These  first  beginnings  have  parts,  but  their  parts  are  so 
small  as  not  to  admit  of  existence  separate  from  the  atom. 
The  atom,  therefore,  has  not  been  formed  from  a  union  of 
these  parts,  but  they  have  existed  in  it  unchangeably  from 
eternity.  Such  parts,  then,  are  but  one  more  proof  that  the 
first  beginnings  are  of  everlasting  singleness.  Again,  without 
such  ultimate  least  things,  the  smallest  and  largest  things  will 
alike  consist  of  infinite  parts,  and  thus  will  be  equal.  Again, 
if  Nature  went  in  division  beyond  the  atom,  such  least  things 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  105 

With  all  the  recent  literature  of  the  Atomic  Theory, 
newly  set  before  us,  with  Tyndall's  Address,  Clark 
Marshall's  Essay  on  Molecules,  Professor  Jenkins' 
"  North  British  Review  "  Essay  on  the  Atomic  Theory 
of  Lucretius,  and  Professor  Veitch's  bright  little 
brochure  under  the  same  name — all,  doubtless,  fresh 
in  the  minds  of  our  readers — it  would  be  superero- 
gatory to  describe  the  Atoms  further  in  detail. 
Enough  to  say  that  the  theory  of  Lucretius,  averring 
the  existence  of  ultimate  and  indivisible  particles  of 
matter,  is  now  universally  admitted  by  modern 
chemists.  It  is  admitted,  too,  that  there  is  a  limited 
number  of  different  Atoms,  out  of  each  of  which  is 
composed  an  elementary  chemical  substance.  "  And 
therefore,"  in  the  words  of  Newton,  "  that  nature  may 
be  lasting,  the  changes  in  corporeal  things  are  to  be 
placed  only  in  various  separations,  and  new  associa- 
tions and  motions  of  these  permanent  particles."  This 
is  the  secret  which  keeps  Nature  for  ever  fresh  and 
new,  this  is  the  unchangeable  law  of  never-changing 
change ;  by  this  the  sun  shines,  and  the  flowers  grow, 
and  the  bosoms  of  love  rise  and  fall  ;  and  the  world 
of  things,  despite  its  innumerable  transformations,  is 
the  same  world  of  Genesis,  as  fresh  and  fair  now  as 
ever. 

This,  so  far  as  I  have  described  it,  is  a  satisfactory 


as  these  parts  of  the  atom  could  not  have  the  qualities  which 
birth-giving  matter  must  have — weight,  motion,  power  of 
striking,  and  clothing,  and  combining.  A  passage  necessarily 
obscure,  because  dealing  with  one  of  those  questions  which 
utterly  elude  the  grasp  of  human  reason.  Epicurus,  building 
up  his  dogmatic  system,  and  hating  all  scepticism  of  first  prin- 
ciples, determined  that  his  atoms  should  have  size,  shape, 
weight — in  his  own  words,  /zcyedo?  <rxipa  fiapos — and  therefore 
extension.  But,  if  extension,  then  parts  ;  and  how  can  that 
which  has  parts  be  indivisible  ?— MUNRO'S  NOTES. 


io6  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

creed,  and  by  no  means  naturally  connected  with  the 
poet's  other  theories. 

The  One  remains,  the  Many  change  and  pass  ; 
Life,  like  a  dome  of  many-coloured  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  Eternity. 

Towards  the  end  of  Book  II.,  however,  we  get  a 
glimpse  which  would  satisfy  Dr.  Gumming.  The 
fruit  ripens  and  falls  in  its  season,  man  grows  and 
decays  in  his  season,  and  in  its  season  the  earth  shall 
perish — for  want,  Lucretius  explains,  of  sustenance. 

And  in  this  wise,  so  storm'd,  the  walls  o'  the  world 

Shall  crumble  into  ruins  and  decay. 

E'en  now  the  age  grows  frail,  and  mother  Earth, 

Out  of  whose  womb  all  mighty  races  came, 

With  all  the  bodies  of  gigantic  beasts, 

Grows  sick,  and  scarce  can  bear  her  pigmy  forms. 

For  ne'er  methinks  by  any  chain  of  gold 

Let  down  from  Heaven  upon  the  nether  fields 

Came  down  the  races  of  humanity, 

Nor  out  of  ocean  and  rock-rending  waves 

Were  any  mortals  born,— but  the  same  Earth 

Which  bare  them  in  her  womb,  now  with  her  milk 

Feeds  them  and  suckles  them  ! 

With  this  end  of  Book  II.  the  reader  finds  a  great  dark- 
ness growing  upon  him  :  and,  in  fact,  such  a  darkness 
is  necessary,  unless  he  prefers  to  be  led  blindfold. 
Dazzled  with  the  mystery  of  the  Atoms,  he  moves  on, 
in  humble  expectation  of  having  the  whole  further 
process  of  Being  explained. 

No  explanation  is  vouchsafed  him.  Book  IIL 
opens  with  another  eulogy  of  Epicurus,  who,  by 
teaching  men  that  the  world  was  not  formed  by  a 
Divine  Power,  but  by  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  Atoms, 
relieved  men  from  supernatural  dread — of  the  gods, 
of  death,  and  of  post-mortem  punishments.  It  is  a 
great  jump  from  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  chemical 
elements  to  the  mind  and  soul  of  man — a  jump  which 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  107 

could  never  be  forgiven  in  a  theologic  poet,  but  is 
highly  eulogised  in  one  whose  "scientific  imagi- 
nation "  favours  modern  Materialism.  Animus,  or 
mind,  resides  in  the  heart,  while  anima  is  diffused 
throughout  the  whole  body ;  and  both  animus  and 
anima  are  simply  combinations  of  minute  atoms. 
We  are  thus  gradually  led  to  the  main  argument 
of  the  book,  that  what  is  called  the  soul  perishes  with 
the  body : 

Quid  dubitas,  tandem  quin  extra  prodita  corpus 
Imbecilla  foras,  in  aperto,  tegmine  dempto; 
Non  modo  non  omnem  possit  durare  per  aevum, 
Sed  minimum  quodvis  nequeat  consistere  tempus  ? 

This  position,  that  the  soul  is  born  and  dies  with  the 
body,  is  sustained  in  a  style  of  argument  worthy,  not 
of  a  supreme  poet,  but  of  the  late  Mr.  Winwood  Read 
or  Dr.  Draper  of  New  York.* 

Death,  therefore,  I  opine,  concerns  us  not, 
Since  the  mind  is  but  mortal,  and  will  perish ! 

For  consolation,  we  are  reminded  that  the  best  men 
die  as  well  as  the  worst — even  Epicurus  being  turned 
to  dust.  This  may  be  comfort  to  Professor  Tyndall, 
who  can  look  forward  cheerfully,  in  his  sweet  poetic 
way,  to  "  melting  like  a  streak  of  morning  cloud  into 
the  infinite  azure  of  the  past."  Unfortunately, 
neither  the  prospect  nor  the  arguments  would  satisfy 
ordinary  mortals  who  are  not  professional  chemists. 
So  far  as  our  human  guide  is  concerned,  he  has,  I 
repeat  it,  led  us  into  an  Inferno,  and  already  we 
seem  to  hear  the  wail  of  the  lost — an  infinite  ululation. 
For  all  that,  the  poet  contains  such  an  abundant 


*  This,  however,  is  not  the  position  sustained  by  Dr.  Draper 
in  his  "Physiology." 


io8  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

happiness  within  himself,  that  he  sings  figuratively  to 
dispel  our  fears : 

The  pathless  tracks  of  the  Pierian  springs 
I  tread,  before  untrodden,  and  with  joy 
Approach  the  waters,  stooping  down  to  drink. 
Gladly  I  pluck  fresh  flowers,  and  for  my  brow 
Enweave  a  chaplet  from  those  secret  spots 
From  whence  the  Muses  never  yet  have  given 
A  wreath  to  cover  any  mortal  head  ! 

His  task  it  is,  he  adds,  to  free  the  mind  from  super- 
stition, and  to  set  forth  a  dark  subject  in  the  most 
lucid  verses  possible.  He  proceeds,  still  following 
the  ideas  of  Epicurus,  to  treat  of  Images — how  they 
are  discharged  from  the  surfaces  of  things,  how  these 
images  affect  the  eyes,  and  are  in  a  certain  subtle 
sense  corporeal,  as  well  as  taste  and  sound.  After  a 
variety  of  striking  illustrations,  he  comes  back  to 
Venus,  and  treats  very  physiologically  of  the  nature 
of  love  and  desire. 

Book  V.  is  chiefly  devoted  to  proofs  that  the 
world  is  not  eternal,  because  as  the  chemic  elements 
are  changeable  and  perishable,  the  world  is  change- 
able and  perishable  too.  The  world  began  and  the 
world  will  end. 

Therefore,  not  closed  is  the  gate  of  Death 
Against  the  sun,  the  skies,  the  earth,  and  sea, 
But  ever  yawning  with  wide  open'd  maw 
It  looketh  on  them,  waiting  for  their  coming ! 

He  proceeds,  as  explicitly  as  possible,  to  explain  the 
world's  beginning;  and  to  show, recurring  here  to  his 
main  point,  that  nothing  was  originally  done  by  Divine 
Wisdom  or  Understanding.  "  The  first  beginnings  of 
things,  many  in  number  in  many  ways  impelled  by 
blows  for  infinite  ages  back,  and  kept  in  motion  by 
their  own  weights,  have  been  wont  to  be  carried  along 
and  to  unite  in  all  manner  of  ways,  and  thoroughly  to 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  109 

test  every  kind  of  production  possible  by  their  mutual 
combinations ;  therefore  it  is  that  spread  abroad 
through  great  time,  after  trying  unions  and  motions 
of  every  kind,  they  at  length  meet  together  in  these 
masses,  which  suddenly  brought  together  become 
often  the  rudiments  of  great  things,  of  earth,  sea, 
heaven,  and  the  race  of  living  things."  *  He  then 
describes  creation  according  to  the  cosmogony  of 
Epicurus- — the  birth  of  the  earth,  the  uprising  of  the 
fiery  ether,  and  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  ;  and  of 
course  he  is  not  to  be  censured  for  placing  the  earth 
in  the  middle  of  the  world.  Of  day  and  night,  of 
eclipses,  of  plants,  animal  life,  and  man,  he  discourses 
with  "  scientific  "  eloquence.  Here  certainly  he  gives 
us  an  inspired  fore-glimpse  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion and  the  survival  of  the  fittest : 

And  many  living  things  have  died  away, 

Too  weak  to  procreate  and  save  their  seed. 

For  wheresoe'er  the  breath  of  life  is  drawn, 

By  cunning  or  by  courage  or  by  speed 

Each  race  has  saved  itself  from  the  beginning. 

And  many  things,  through  use  to  mortal  men, 

By  us  protected,  prosper  and  endure. 

By  courage,  lions  fierce  and  savage  races 

Have  been  protected  ;  foxes  by  their  craft ; 

And  by  their  flight,  swift  stags.     But  faithful  dogs, 

Light-sleeping,  and  all  seed  of  burthen'd  beasts, 

And  all  the  woolly  flocks  and  horned  herds, 

Have  thriven,  O  Memmius,  by  the  help  of  man. 

He  proceeds  to  describe  the  early  state  of  Nature, 
and  soon,  in  a  passage  of  surprising  eloquence,  he 
describes  the  condition  of  primitive  Man  himself: 

Then  was  the  race  of  men  a  hardier  race, 
Like  to  the  hard,  strong  earth  from  which  they  sprang, 
And  on  the  ground- work  of  their  mightier  bones 
Strong  thews  and  sinews  knit  the  frame  of  flesh. 

*  Munro's  translation. 


no  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Not  then,  by  quick  extremes  of  heat  or  cold, 

Or  food  unfit,  or  any  malady, 

Did  mortals  sicken.     While  the  sun  thro'  heaven 

Rolled  on  thro'  many  lustres,  they  prolonged 

A  life  as  roving  as  the  life  of  beasts. 

No  hand  then  guided  the  sharp  crooked  plough, 

Or  dug  the  fields,  or  sowed  i'  the  earth  new  seeds, 

Or  cut  old  boughs  away  with  pruning-hooks  ; 

What  had  been  given  by  the  sun  and  showers, 

What  green  Earth  freely  on  her  bosom  bore, 

Was  ample  then  to  satisfy  their  needs. 

Mostly  on  acorn-bearing  oaks  they  fed, 

Or  berries  of  the  wild  arbutus-trees, 

Which  now  thou  seest  in  winter-time  grow  red, 

And  which  were  then  more  large  and  plentiful ; 

And  many  wholesome  fruits  and  foods  beside, 

More  than  enough  for  miserable  men. 

The  flowery  freshness  of  the  green  earth  bare. 

Then  rivers  and  soft  fountains  called  to  them 

To  come  and  quench  their  thirst ;  as,  nowadays, 

The  torrent  waters  rushing  from  their  hills 

With  bubbling  murmur  echoing  far  and  wide, 

Summon  the  thirsty  tribes  of  savage  beasts. 

Within  the  silvery  temples  of  the  nymphs 

Then,  too,  they  rested  after  wandering, 

And  watched  the  quiet  waters  creeping  forth, 

Bathing  with  limpid  flow  the  dripping  rocks, 

Trickling  all  silvery  o'er  the  emerald  moss, 

Or  bubbling  brightly  o'er  the  level  plain. 

And  yet  they  knew  not  how  to  work  with  fire, 

To  tan  wild  hides,  or  clothe  about  their  frames 

With  skins  of  beasts  ;  but  deep  in  glades  they  dwelt, 

In  hidden  forests,  under  mountain  caves, 

Sheltering  their  rugged  limbs  among  the  boughs 

From  the  wild  beating  of  the  winds  and  rains. 

They  knew  no  common  use  nor  common  weal, 

No  common  law  nor  custom  ;  for  himself 

Each  struggled,  taught  to  think  of  self  alone, 

And  whatsoever  he  by  fortune  found 

Each  to  his  own  lone  cavern  bore  away. 


And,  marvellously  swift  of  hands  and  feet, 

WTith  stones  and  great  clubs  fashioned  out  of  trees, 

They  hunted  down  the  forest-ranging  beasts  ; 

And  some  they  conquered,  and  from  some  they  fled, 

Crouching  and  hiding  ;  and  when  night-time  came, 

They  rolled  themselves  like  swine  upon  the  ground, 

And  cover'd  up  their  limbs  with  boughs  and  leaves. 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  in 

Yet  never  wailed  they  for  the  day  to  come, 
Nor  wandered  through  the  shadows  of  the  night 
With  terror  stricken  ;  silent,  sunk  in  sleep, 
They  waited,  till  the  sun  with  flaming  torch 
Illumed  the  heavens  ;  for  they  had  ever  known 
Such  alternations  of  the  light  and  dark, 
And  so  no  wonder  fell  upon  their  souls, 
Nor  any  fear  that  an  eternal  night 
Might  come  upon  the  earth  and  cover  it, 
Veiling  the  golden  sun  for  evermore  ! 

This  is  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Sir  John  Lubbock,  and 
yet  it  has  also  a  flavour  of  Rousseau.  What  follows 
is  much  in  the  same  vein,  and  quite  en  rapport  with 
modern  science.  How  men  learnt  the  uses  of  fire, 
and  sheltered  themselves  from  the  cold  ;  how  men 
softened,  and  leagues  of  friendship  were  formed  ;  how 
speech  was  learned,  and  human  intercourse  increased  ; 
how  more  and  more  every  day  those  who  excelled  in 
intellect  kindly  showed  men  new  methods — till,  at 
last,  kings  were  elected,  towns  built,  wealth  accumu- 
lated, and  the  worship  of  the  gods  began.  Finally, 
civilisation  came.  "  Ships  and  tillage,  walls,  laws, 
arms,  roads,  dress,  and  all  such  things,  all  the  prizes, 
all  the  elegances,  too,  of  life  without  exception,  poems, 
pictures,  and  the  chiselling  fine-wrought  statues, — all 
these  things  practice,  together  with  the  acquired 
knowledge  of  the  untiring  mind,  taught  men  by  slow 
degrees  as  they  advanced  on  the  way  step  by  step. 
Thus  Time  by  degrees  brings  each  several  thing  forth 
before  men's  eyes,  and  Reason  raises  them  up  into 
the  borders  of  light ;  for  things  must  be  brought  to 
light  one  after  another  and  in  due  order  in  the  dif- 
ferent arts,  until  these  have  reached  the  highest  point 
of  development."*  So  ends  the  fifth  book. 

Book  the  sixth  and  last  opens  with  an  eulogium 

*  Munro. 


ii2  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

of  Athens,  first  teacher  of  agriculture  and  useful  arts 
to  suffering  men,  and  the  thrice-honoured  birthplace 
of  Epicurus.  Lucretius  then  elaborately  explains  the 
nature  of  thunder,  and  of  those  luminous  portents 
which  from  time  to  time  affright  the  world.  He 
shows  that  thunder  is  simply  the  collision  and  clash- 
ing of  clouds,  and  that  lightning  is  the  fire  struck  out 
by  such  collisions.  Recurring  again  to  his  main 
point,  he  heaps  derision  on  those  who  attribute  storms 
to  the  instrumentality  of  gods. 

If  Jupiter  and  other  gods  above 

Can  shake  the  glittering  regions  of  the  sky 

With  awful  sound,  and  wheresoe'er  they  will 

Hurl  down  avenging  fires,  why  spare  they  those 

Who  fear  not  to  commit  atrocious  crimes  ? 

Why  scorch  them  not  with  lightning  thro'  and  thro', 

Making  a  sign  to  teach  us  mortal  men  ? 

And  why  is  he  whose  conscience  knows  no  sin, 

Tho'  he  be  stainless,  wrapt  about  with  flame, 

Ari§  caught  into  the  fiery  arms  of  heaven  ? 

Why  aim  the  gods  at  solitary  spots, 

Wasting  their  labours  and  their  thunderbolts  ? 

Is  it  to  exercise  their  arms  and  thews  ? 

Why  does  the  Father  suffer  this  Himself, 

And  not  reserve  it  for  His  enemies  ?  etc. 

In  the  same  spirit  he  explains  earthquakes,  the 
secrets  of  the  sea,  the  volcanic  flames  of  Etna  and  the 
inundation  of  the  Nile,  the  temperature  of  wells  and 
springs ;  and,  finally,  coming  to  the  loadstone  or 
magnet,  he  recapitulates  all  that  he  has  said,  in  the 
first  part  of  his  poem,  on  the  rarity  of  bodies.  "  It  is 
necessary  to  establish  that  nothing  comes  under  sense 
save  body  mixed  with  void.  For  instance,  in  caves, 
rocks  overhead  sweat  with  moisture,  and  trickle  down 
in  oozing  drops,"  etc.  This  being  understood,  mag- 
netism is  a  stream  of  atoms  being  pulled  back  to  fill 
the  vacuum  in  the  middle  of  the  loadstone.  By  a 
somewhat  abrupt  transition,  Lucretius  next  treats  of 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  113 

diseases  "  and,  from  what  causes  the  force  of  disease 
may  suddenly  gather  itself  up  and  bring  death,  deal- 
ing destruction  on  the  race  of  man  and  the  troops  of 
wild  beasts."  The  air  is  full  of  seeds,  some  salubrious, 
some  noxious  to  man ;  and  as  these  predominate  in 
the  air,  health  or  sickness  prevails.  This  last  part  of 
the  poem  resolves  itself  less  into  an  explanation  of 
diseased  phenomena  than  a  mere  catalogue  of  dis- 
eases. We  are  told  of  the  Egyptian  leprosy,  of  the 
Attic  gout,  and,  finally,  as  a  crowning  picture,  of  the 
Athenian  plague.  No  detail  is  spared  us  of  the  horrors 
of  that  pestilence.  The  poet,  as  if  determined  to  deepen 
into  horrid  certainty  the  mental  dread  within  us,  and  to 
save  us  from  mad  belief  in  Divine  Beneficence,  piles 
horror  upon  horror,  mingles  a  hospital  with  a 
shambles,  and  shames  the  Muse  out  of  her  own 
natural  joy.  These  are  the  last  lines  of  the  entire 
poem — 

And  some  were  seized  with  such  forgetfulness, 

Themselves  they  knew  not  ;  and  though  corpses  lay 

Piled  upon  corpses  tombless  on  the  earth, 

No  bird  or  beast  of  prey  came  nigh  the  stench, 

But  hovered  far  away  ;  and  if  by  chance 

One  came  and  tasted,  it  grew  sick  and  perish'd. 

Yea,  wild  birds  hung  aloof,  and  savage  beasts 

Hid  in  the  dark  recesses  of  the  woods. 

Many  dropped  down  in  death  ;  hounds  in  the  street 

Lay  stretch'd,  scarce  struggling,  and  turn'd  o'er  and  died. 

Then  silently  passed  hurried  funerals, 

Followed  by  none  that  mourn'd.     And  mortal  men 

Knew  for  this  evil  thing  no  certain  cure  ; 

For  what  to  one  man  gave  new  life  and  health, 

And  suffered  him  again  to  see  the  sun, 

Struck  down  another  into  fatal  death. 

In  these  sad  days  this  was  most  pitiful, 

Most  quick  to  rend  the  heart : — when  any  man 

Found  himself  prisoned  in  the  fatal  folds, 

He  struggled  not,  but,  lost  to  life  and  use, 

Lay  on  the  ground  awaiting  certain  death, 

And  yielded  up  his  spirit  as  he  lay. 


ii4  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Ever  and  ever,  like  to  flocks  and  herds, 

They  caught  the  direful  plague  from  one  another  ! 

And  death  was  heaped  on  death,  for  those  that  fled, 

Fearing  to  tend  their  kinsmen  stricken  down, 

Were  dreadfully  pursued  in  turn  and  slain, 

To  direful  death  condemned  by  dread  of  death, 

Unpitied,  doomed,  and  in  their  turn  forlorn. 

****** 

Then  every  herd  and  shepherd  in  the  hills, 

And  every  mighty  guider  of  the  plough, 

Sickened,  and  in  their  huts  were  left  to  rot, 

Dead,  slain  by  poverty  and  fell  disease  ! 

And  so  dead  parents  over  their  dead  young 

Lay  scattered,  and  upon  their  parents  dead 

Dead  children  ;  and  from  country  into  town 

The  peasants,  driven  by  the  fatal  plague, 

Came  ever,  bringing  horror  in  their  train, 

In  all  the  public  places  sheltering, 

Until  Death  drifted  them  in  direful  heaps 

One  on  another  ;  and  impell'd  by  thirst, 

Many  crept  forth,  and  crawled  along  the  street, 

Until  they  reached  the  fountains,  stooped  to  drink. 

And  even  in  drinking  died  !        *        * 

And  all  the  blessed  sanctuaries  of  the  gods 

Were  piled  with  corpses,  and  the  heavenly  shrines 

Were  brimful,  for  the  guardians  of  the  places 

Had  thrown  them  open  to  the  coming  guests. 

And  no  man  worshipt  now  to  any  god, 

For  each  man's  heart  was  full  of  present  ill. 

And  gentle  rites  of  burial  were  forgotten 

Which  all  that  pious  town  had  used  before, 

And  men  ran  hither  and  thither  wringing  hands, 

And  burying  their  dead  as  best  they  might. 

And  out  of  horror  and  of  poverty 

Were  born  dark  deeds  ;  for  many,  shrieking  loud, 

Upon  the  funeral  pyres  of  strangers  placed 

Their  kinsfolk,  setting  torches  to  the  same. 

And  there  they  fought,  with  flowing  streams  of  blood, 

Sooner  than  quit  their  places  by  their  dead  ! 

It  is  veritably  the  last  circle  of  the  Inferno,  whence 
emerging  at  last,  to  our  infinite  relief,  we  "  again  be- 
hold the  stars/'* 

Brief  and  insufficient  as  my  glimpse  has  been  of  a 

*  Dante,  "Inf."xxxiv. 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  115 

work  which  stands  solitary  in  the  literature  of  an- 
tiquity, as  the  one  great  poem  explaining  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  I  have  sufficiently  expressed  its 
spirit  to  show  what  attraction  it  has  for  modern 
materialists.  Utterly  in  revolt  against  the  Alex- 
andrian philosophy  and  poetry,  then  so  fashionable, 
Lucretius  determined  to  be  terribly  non-ideal  and 
realistic.  t(  His  poem  is  indeed,"  as  Professor  Veitch 
has  admirably  expressed  it,  "  a  type  in  the  world  of 
thought  of  the  irrepressible  Roman  spirit  of  absolute 
sovereignty,  and  love  of  orderly  rule  in  the  world  of 
practical  life  and  action/'  He  himself  stands  sovereign 
and  centre  of  things,  with  no  doubts  and  prevarica- 
tions, but  with  a  precision  of  conception  which  sup- 
plies the  place  of  actual  verification.  Yet  they  have 
learned  little  of  Lucretius,  they  have  penetrated  but 
little  into  his  arcana,  who  aver,  like  many  modern 
writers  who  would  fain  make  him  a  mere  enemy  of 
the  ancient  polytheistic  religion,  that  this  poet  had 
a  divine  consciousness  of  "  something  more  than 
Matter."  To  hint  as  much  is  to  misconstrue  Lucre- 
tius completely.  He  is  a  materialist  pure  and  simple, 
solemn  and  staunch  ;  as  bigoted  in  his  creed  and  as 
certain  of  his  gospel  as  the  veriest  divine  that  ever 
thumped  a  cushion  ;  as  anxious  to  proselytise  as  any 
other  more  popular  Apostle ;  with  all  the  zeal  of  a 
missionary,  and  all  the  pomposity  of  a  Bishop.  He 
leaves  no  room  whatever  for  that  Unknowable  in 
which  our  later  prophets,  such  as  Mr.  Spencer,  have 
so  much  faith.  His  individual  knowledge  may  be  in- 
adequate, but  all  things  are  ascertainable  by  the 
human  mind — and  why  ? — because  there  is  so  little 
to  ascertain.  A  Void  and  a  fortuitous  concourse  of 
Atoms;  a  Creation  and  a  Change ;  a  march  of  elements, 
for  ever  destroying  and  for  ever  renewed — this  is  what 

I    2 


ii6  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

he  has  to  show  us,  pointing  upward.  Pointing  down- 
ward, the  earth  rolling  on  to  some  fiery  end,  and  ever 
growing  weaker  and  weaker ;  Man  in  countless  gene- 
rations passing  from  primaeval  simplicity  to  stages  of 
degeneracy,  decay,  and  death ;  gods  fading  away  like 
wreaths  of  morning  cloud,  while  pestilence  and  famine 
complete  the  doom  of  each  benighted  race.  His  ideas 
and  pictures,  like  his  language,  are  vivid  and  grandiose. 
One  feels  a  certain  sense  of  vastness,  of  expanse, 
of  duration.  I  cannot,  however,  agree  with  his 
warmest  admirers,  that  his  highest  characteristic  is 
an  extraordinary  feeling  for  the  Limitless.  On  the 
contrary,  I  am  acquainted  with  no  poet  who  con- 
fines our  conceptions  so  specifically  within  a  given 
area ;  who  so  persistently  weighs  and  appraises  the 
finite  with  so  feeble  a  conception  of  the  Infinite  ; 
who  shocks  us  with  so  many  prophecies  of  the  scien- 
tific lecturing-table  and  the  medical  dissecting-room  ; 
who  is,  in  a  word,  so  supremely  and  absolutely  blind 
to  all  the  higher  phenomena  of  Mind.  His  attitude 
is  Napoleonic;  he  is  master  of  all  things,  and  conquest 
can  no  further  go.  He  has  the  lowest  possible  con- 
ception even  of  atomic  forces,  the  vilest  possible 
estimation  of  the  nature  and  destiny  of  Man.  He  is 
courageous,  for  he  can  live ;  he  is  not  hopeless,  for  he 
can  die.  He  knows  that  God  is  a  Phantom,  that 
Love  is  a  physical  desire,  that  Man  is  a  creature  of 
matter,  and  that  both  Man  and  the  world  must  perish. 
This  knowledge  brings  him  no  sweet  assurance ;  it  is 
a  cup  of  hemlock,  which  only  the  wise  may  drink, 
and  which  he  therefore  drinks  with  becoming  pride, 
but  utterly  without  joy.  He  is  a  materialist,  for  he 
believes  the  world  is  over-ripe,  and  is  slowly  hastening 
to  decay ;  he  is  a  pessimist,  for  he  believes  that  civi- 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  117 

lisation  brings  no  bliss  to  ft  miserable  men/'  Passing 
out  with  Epicurus  beyond  the  "  flaming  walls  of  the 
world,"  he  has  only  discovered  that  there  is  nothing 
there.  In  truth,  this  passing  the  "  flaming  walls " 
was  only  a  dream.  All  the  time  he  was  standing  at 
his  own  door,  contemplating  the  Necropolis,  and 
wondering  when  his  time  would  come. 

If  modern  Materialism  had  no  more  philosophy 
to  teach  them  than  we  find  in  the  pages  of  the  "  De 
Rerum  Natura/'  men  should  despair  indeed ;  but, 
fortunately,  nothing  is  more  jubilant  and  self-satisfied 
than  the  tone  adopted  by  every  demi-god  of  the 
modern  lecture-room.  The  "  grand  old  Pagans,"  as 
Professor  Tyndall  cheerfully  calls  them,*  might  de- 
spair, but  our  contemporary  Pagans  mean  to  do 
nothing  of  the  kind.  The  condition  of  the  world  is 
every  day  growing  brighter,  the  happiness  of  man  is 
every  day  growing  surer :  these  are  formulas  on 
which  they  habitually  insist;  and  the  inevitable 
amelioration  of  things  is  due,  they  add,  not  to  Re- 
ligion, but  to  Science.  What  they  mean  by  Science 
they  have  never  quite  explained,  any  more  than 
many  of  their  opponents  have  explained  what  they 
mean  by  Religion  ;  but  some  things  are  clear :  for 
example,  that  just  as  the  religion  of  such  men  as 
the  Duke  of  Argyle  and  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle  is 
scientific,  so  the  science  of  such  men  as  Mr.  Darwin 
and  Mr.  Spencer  is  religious.  In  the  controversial 
jargon  of  the  day  there  is  a  strange  confusion  of 
terms.  For  example,  Dr.  Draper  (in  that  very  super- 
ficial book  on  the  "  Conflict  of  Religion  and  Science," 
which  Professor  Tyndall  is  so  fond  of  rashly  praising) 

*  "  Crystals  and  Molecular  Force." 


n8  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

means  by  Religion  chiefly  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  and  by  Science  many  discoveries  which  we 
might  almost  class  as  purely  mechanical.  "  I  have 
said  nothing,"  he  cries,  with  a  mental  confusion  which 
would  be  fiercely  reprobated  in  a  theologian, "  nothing 
adequate  about  the  railway  system,  or  the  electric 
telegraph ;  nor  about  the  calculus,  or  lithography ; 
the  air-pump,  or  the  voltaic  battery ;  the  discovery  of 
Uranus  or  Neptune,  and  more  than  a  hundred 
asteroids  ;  the  relation  of  meteoric  streams  to 
comets ;  nothing  of  the  expeditions  by  land  and 
sea  that  have  been  sent  forth  by  various  Govern- 
ments for  the  determination  of  important  astro- 
nomical or  geographical  questions ;  nothing  of  the 
costly  and  accurate  experiments  they  have  caused 
to  be  made  for  the  ascertainment  of  fundamental 
physical  data.  I  have  been  so  unjust  to  our  own 
century,  that  I  have  made  no  allusion  to  some  of 
its  greatest  scientific  triumphs ;  its  grand  concep- 
tions in  natural  history ;  its  discoveries  in  mag- 
netism and  electricity  ;  its  invention  of  the  beautiful 
art  of  photography;  its  applications  of  spectrum 
analysis  ;  its  attempts  to  bring  chemistry  under  the 
three  laws  of  Avogadro,  of  Boyle  and  Mariotte, 
and  of  Charles  ;  its  artificial  production  of  organic 
substances  from  inorganic  material,  of  which  the 
philosophical  consequences  are  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance ;  its  reconstruction  of  physiology  by  laying 
the  foundation  of  that  science  on  chemistry ;  its  im- 
provements and  advances  in  topographical  survey- 
ing, and  in  the  correct  representation  of  the  surface 
of^the  globe.  /  have  said  nothing  about  rifled  guns 
and  armoured  ships,  nor  of  the  revolution  that  has  been 
made  in  tJte  art  of  war ;  nothing  of  that  gift  to  women, 
the  sewing-machine ;  nothing  of  the  noble  contentions 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  119 

and  triumphs  of  the  arts  of  peace — the  industrial  exhi- 
bitions and  worUTs  fairs"  * 

Nothing,  let  me  add,  about  the  Crystal  Palace  and 
the  Barnum  Hippodrome  of  New  York ;  nothing  of 
the  kaleidoscope  and  the  magic  lantern  ;  nothing 
about  the  School  Board  and  the  workhouse,  of  the 
treadmill  and  the  penitentiary !  When  a  scientific 
pedant  writes  nonsense  like  this,  it  is  difficult  to  be 
serious.  Blindly  oblivious  of  all  those  enormous 
tracts  of  knowledge,  both  moral  and  physical,  which 
have  been  gained  solely  for  us  by  the  religious  in- 
stincts of  man,  he  seems  to  be  claiming  all  the 
victories  of  Art  for  peripatetic  chemists  and  quacks 
of  Nature's  laboratory.  The  truth  is,  Religion  and 
Science  cannot  be  separated  on  the  off-hand  assump- 
tion, now  so  generally  made,  that  the  one  is  not 
"  religious/'  and  the  other  is  not  "  scientific."  To 
my  mind,  for  example,  Mr.  Spencer  is  an  eminently 
religious  man  ;  not  certainly  in  the  sense  which  con- 
fuses Dr.  Draper,  but  as  a  man  in  whom,  to  paraphrase 
Professor  Tyndall's  pompous  remark  concerning  him, 
"  the  ganglia  are  sometimes  the  seat  of  a  nascent 
poetic  thrill."  Professor  Tyndall  himself  "goes  to 
church,"  in  a  building  of  his  own  uprearing ;  and  it 
is  in  no  irreverent  mood,  though  the  irreverent  may 
sometimes  laugh  at  him,  that  he  stands  on  a  magnetic 
stool,  or  experimentalises  with  a  raw  turnip.  No  one 
familiar  with  his  higher  ideas  can  doubt  that  he  is 
a  man  capable  of  the  most  noble  emotions,  and  as 
beneficent  in  his  social  conceptions  as  any  Christian 
of  this  generation.  It  is  unjust,  therefore,  to  call 
such  men  irreligious  ;  and  it  is,  moreover,  very  con- 


*  "The  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science."     By  D  . 
Draper.     International  Scientific  Series.     (King  and  Co.) 


120  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

fusing.  They  are  doing  missionary  work  of  a  very 
fatiguing  kind,  and  their  efforts  deserve  our  warmest 
encouragement,  however  much  we  may  quarrel  with 
their  "  ideas." 

It  was  therefore  in  a  truly  proselytising  spirit  that 
Dr.  Tyndall,  in  his  memorable  Belfast  address,  while 
rapidly  surveying  the  history  of  the  Atomic  Theory 
from  Democritus  downward,  drew  special  attention 
to  the  scientific  forecasts  of  Lucretius.  He  first 
called  attention  to  the  original  propositions  of  De- 
mocritus, that — (i)  From  nothing  comes  nothing ; 
nothing  that  exists  can  be  destroyed  ;  all  changes  are 
due  to  the  combination  and  separation  of  molecules. 

(2)  Nothing  happens   by  chance;  every  occurrence 
having  its  cause,  which  it  follows   from   necessity; 

(3)  the  only  existing  things  are  atoms   and   void  ; 

(4)  the   atoms,    infinite    in    number    and    infinite  in 
form,  strike  together,  and   the   lateral  motions  and 
whirling   which    thus    arise    are   the   beginnings    of 
worlds ;  (5)  the  varieties  of  all  things  depend  on  the 
varieties  of  their  atoms,  their  number,  size,  and  ag- 
gregation ;    (6)    the    soul    consists    of   fine,    smooth 
round  atoms,  like  those  of  fire,  and  in  their  motions 
the   phenomena  of  life   arise.     "  The  first   five   pro- 
positions,"  added  the  Professor,  "  are  a  fair  general 
statement  of  the  Atomic  Theory,  as  now  held  ;  as  re- 
gards the  sixth,  Democritus  made  his  fine  smooth 
atoms   to   do   duty   for   the   nervous   system,  whose 
functions  were  then  unknown."     Then,  tracing  the 
opinions  of  Epicurus  concerning  death,  he  introduces, 
by  way  of  anecdote,  a  fallacy  of  his  own,  much  in 
favour  at  the  present  day,  and  used  as  a  constant 
argument  by  Mr.  John   Morley.     "'Did  I  not  be- 
lieve/ said  a  great  man  to  me  once,  "that  an  Intel- 
ligence is  at  the  heart  of  things,  my  life  on  earth 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  121 

would  be  intolerable/  The  utterer  of  these  words 
is  not,  in  my  opinion,  rendered  less  noble,  but  more 
noble,  by  the  fact  that  it  was  the  need  of  ethical 
harmony  here,  and  not  the  thought  of  perpetual 
profit  hereafter,  that  prompted  his  observations." 

Now,  I  have  already  called  Dr.  Tyndall  a  re- 
ligious man,  a  man  of  reverent  and  holy  bearing 
towards  all  the  great  mysteries  of  creation  ;  but  here, 
simply  by  passing  beyond  his  depth,  he  is  childishly 
unjust  to  those  who,  not  without  mightier  reasons 
than  any  he  can  ever  find  among  the  atoms,  believe 
in  the  infinite  possibilities  of  spiritual  existence. 
Surely  the  History  of  Religion,  not  as  set  forth  by 
a  superficial  pamphleteer,  by  Dr.  Draper,  but  as  con- 
tained in  that  aggregation  of  individual  history  which 
we  call  "  Biography,"  should  teach  him  that  Hegel's 
favourite  joke  is  not  worth  this  repeated  reproduction. 
The  religious  thirst  for  future  life  is  quite  another 
thirst  than  that  for  the  bonus  for  good  conduct  often 
sought  by  so-called  Christians,  and  seeing  that  it 
exists  most  in  those  who  are  content  to  accept 
life  as  an  interminable  labour  darkened  by  sorrow 
and  by  suffering,  it  should  not  be  classed  as  alto- 
gether a  selfish  hope  of  reward.  From  the  mo- 
dern utilitarian  point  of  view,  of  course  all  effort  is 
selfish ;  and  from  the  same  standpoint,  there  is  no 
particular  nobility  in  struggling  after  truth  before 
astonished  Belfast  audiences,  or  experimentalising  in 
the  interest  of  humanity  on  an  electric  stool  ! 

Fame  is  the  spur  which  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise, 

(That  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind) 

To  scorn  delight  and  live  laborious  days  ! 

Noble  as  is  the  Professor's  desire  for  fame,  I  ques- 
tion his  capacity  for  martyrdom,  and  his  insinuations 
concerning  religion  are  more  in  the  spirit  of  a  bigoted 


122  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

bishop  than  of  a  good  philosopher.  Would  he  not 
consider  it  rather  hard  if  an  opponent — say  the  Bishop 
of  Manchester— were  to  say,  "This  publishing  of 
pamphlets  is  all  very  well,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
thought  of  personal  profit,  whether  in  the  shape  of 
fame  or  money,  Jiere"  The  truth  is,  the  Professor, 
stirred  into  polemics  by  irritating  opponents,  does 
himself  the  injustice  to  confound  "  hope  of  reward  " 
with  "  a  love  of  service,"  which  love,  I  am  sure,  is 
the  animating  spirit  of  his  own  life.  Now,  the  re- 
ligious conception  is  simply  this, — that  this  life,  with 
all  its  hindrances  and  imperfections,  is  infinitely  too 
brief  for  that  divine  service,  or  supreme  self-sacrifice, 
which  many  creatures  love  to  intoxication.  It  is  not 
pleasure  that  is  solicited ;  it  is  continual  hard  work, 
even  associated  with  pain  ;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  this  desire  to  enlarge  the  vital  horizon  is  the 
source  of  nobler  sentiments  than  the  conviction  that 
Death  merely  robs  us  of  sensation.  It  is  the  Ma- 
terialist here,  not  the  Idealist,  who  clings  firm  to  the 
vulgar  conception  of  Heaven  and  Hell.  Dr.  Tyndall 
would  doubtless  affirm  of  the  early  Christian  martyrs 
that  they  were  upheld  by  the  conviction  that  God 
would  justify  Himself  after  death  and  make  them  glad, 
and  so  in  truth  they  thought ;  but  it  requires  no  very 
close  study  of  history  to  see  that  many  of  these  meant 
by  heavenly  gladness  only  a  further  series  of  personal 
labours,  a  further  purging  and  purification  from 
human  impurity.  The  insinuations  of  the  materialist 
would  be  unjust  even  if  urged  against  the  best  forms 
of  Mahomedanism  ;  as  urged  against  the  higher 
Christianity,  they  are  simply  absurd  and  self-refuting 
Religion,  rightly  understood,  is  the  love  of  holy 
service.  In  this  sense,  as  I  have  suggested,  a  Ma- 
terialist may  be  very  religious ;  but  the  state  of  mind 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  123 

with  him  is  generally  this — either  that  a  brief  life 
satisfies  his  activity,  or  else  that  the  constant  contem- 
plation of  the  infinitesimal  destroys  the  power  of  his 
capacity  to  generalise  truly.  With  one  to  whom 
poetic  emotion  is  "  the  thrill  of  a  ganglion,"  thought 
"  cerebration,"  life  "  molecular  force/'  creation  "  evo- 
lution," crime  "cerebral  disease,"  Religion  may  well 
become  a  question  of  "  rewards  and  punishments  ;  " 
but  it  is  as  unfair  to  dismiss  Religion  in  this  super- 
ficial way,  as  it  would  be  to  treat  modern  science  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  holy  Congregation  of  the 
Index. 

I  have  no  objection  whatever  to  modern  Ma- 
terialism ;  it  is  a  vital  and  it  may  be  an  elevating 
creed.  I  have  the  highest  objection,  however,  to 
its  criticism  of  those  ideas  which  it  does  not  under- 
stand, and  which,  if  we  accept  its  own  showing,  can 
never  be  formulated.  Doubtless,  it  is  a  far  higher 
and  holier  belief  than  the  crude  religions  of  Epicurus 
and  Lucretius,  in  so  far  as  it  preaches  beneficence, 
under  certain  limitations,  to  the  inferior  races  of  men 
and  to  the  inferior  races  of  beasts.  It  is  a  creed  of 
continence,  of  health,  of  sobriety,  of  enduranre,  and 
perhaps  self-sacrifice.  But  it  is  not,  at  least  as  pre- 
sented to  us  by  its  leading  teachers,  the  creed  it  pro- 
fesses to  be — that  is,  a  creed  of  Verification.  A 
Christian  is  more  logical  in  believing  his  Christian 
evidences  than  a  Materialist  in  accepting  his  theory 
of  the  Atoms;  for  the  very  existence  of  the  last  is 
postulated  as  a  theory,  while  the  former,  whether 
false  or  true,  are  invariably  valued  in  so  far  as 
they  are  evidence — that  is,  are  verification.  I  ac- 
company Dr.  Tyndall  through  his  Universe ;  I  seem 
to  see  his  atoms  falling  through  infinite  space;  I 
hear  him  crying,  "  I  prolong  the  vision  backward 


124  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

across  the  boundary  of  the  experimental  evidence, 
and  discern  in  that  Matter  which  we,  in  our  igno- 
rance, and  notwithstanding  our  professed  reverence 
for  its  Creator,  have  hitherto  covered  with  opprobrium,, 
the  promise  and  potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of 
Life/'*  Very  good,  I  reply;  but  what  right  have 
you  to  "  prolong  your  vision  across  the  boundary  of 
the  experimental  evidence  "  ?  You  laugh  at  others  for 
doing  so.  You  are  an  experimental  philosopher 
—you  can  tell  us  startling  things  about  the  phe- 
nomena of  light,  heat,  radiation,  and  magnetism — but 
neither  you  nor  any  of  your  school  can  tell  us  one 
fact,  can  give  us  one  idea,  explaining  the  phenomena 
of  Life  itself.  Suppose  we,  in  our  turn,  were  to  cry 
to  you,  "  This  is  our  Universe ;  we  know  we  are,, 
we  see  what  is ;  we  prolong  the  vision  forwards 
across  the  boundary  of  the  experimental  evidence, 
and  discern  in  that  Spirit  of  which  you,  in  your  igno- 
rance, can  give  us  no  explanation,  and  notwithstand- 
ing your  professed  reverence  for  the  Unknowable,  are 
daily  covering  with  opprobrium,  the  promise  and 
potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of  Life/' 

It  is  not  right  that  I  should  be  construed  as 
objecting  to  Science,  or  to  its  leading  modern 
doctrine,  that  of  Evolution.  On  the  contrary,  I 
quite  agree  with  Mr.  Darwin  (who  showed  in  all  his 
discussions  a  reverence  of  tone  and  a  purity  of  pur- 
pose in  which  he  is  almost  unique)  that  "  it  is  just  as 
noble  a  conception  of  the  Deity  to  think  that  He 
created  a  few  original  forms,  capable  of  self-develop- 
ment, into  other  and  needful  forms,  as  to  believe  that 
He  required  a  fresh  act  of  creation  to  supply  the  voids 
caused  by  the  action  of  His  laws."  (It  is  but  just  to- 
add  that  Mr.  Darwin  is  merely  quoting  with  approba- 

*  Belfast  Address. 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  125 

tion  an  eminent  "  author  and  divine,"  not  using  his 
own  words.)  Here,  however,  the  pupil  and  the 
master  are  hopelessly  at  war,  Dr.  Tyndall  almost 
accusing  the  great  Apostle  of  Evolution  of  heresy  to 
his  own  creed.  "  The  anthropomorphism,  which  it 
seemed  his  object  to  set  aside,  is  as  firmly  associated 
with  the  creation  of  a  few  forms  as  with  the  creation 
of  a  multitude.  We  need  clearness  and  thoroughness 
here.  Either  let  us  open  our  doors  freely  to  the  con- 
ception of  creative  acts,  or,  abandoning  them,  let  us 
radically  change  our  notions  of  Matter."  In  my 
opinion,  and  doubtless  in  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Tyndall's 
great  master,  no  such  alternative  is  necessary  ;  for  it 
is  not  necessary  to  discuss  Creation  at  all,  seeing  that 
all  Science  can  tell  us  is  that  it  knows  nothing  what- 
ever on  the  subject !  All  that  it  does  is,  passing  the 
boundary  of  the  experimental  evidence,  to  find  the 
Atoms — a  name  given  to  numberless  forces  we  can- 
not understand.  We  reach  these  organisms  which 
Mr.  Spencer  compares  to  drops  of  oil  suspended  in 
a  mixture  of  alcohol  and  water ;  we  come  to  the 
<"  protogenes "  of  Haeckel,  a  type  distinguishable 
from  a  fragment  of  albumen  only  by  its  finely 
granular  character.  We  go  further,  thanks  to  the 
Professor  :  we  break  a  magnet  into  infinite  pieces,  and 
we  find  that  each  of  the  pieces,  however  small,  carries 
with  it,  though  enfeebled,  the  polarity  of  the  whole. 
This  experiment  is  so  conclusive  to  the  Professor, 
that  he  "at  once  closes  with  Lucretius,"  affirming 
that  Nature  is  seen  "  to  do  all  things  spontaneously 
and  without  the  meddling  of  the  gods,"  and  with 
Bruno,  that  she  is  "  the  Universal  Mother  who  brings 
forth  all  things  as  the  fruit  of  her  own  womb."  What 
then  ?  Surely  these  vague  generalisations  are  un- 
worthy of  a  physicist.  Does  the  breaking  of  the 
magnet,  "  even  when  we  prolong  the  intellectual  vision 


126  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

to  the  polar  molecules,"  bring  us  one  whit  nearer  to 
the  Mystery  we  are  investigating  ?  And  if  it  does  not, 
which  materialists  themselves  admit,  why  make  it 
the  basis  of  an  atheistic  assumption  ?  In  no  single 
instance  have  vital  and  physical  forces  been  found 
interchangeable  on  the  principle  of  the  correlation  of 
force.  Protoplasm  has  never  yet  been  developed 
from  inorganic  matter,  although  Dr.  Bastian's  experi- 
ments show  that  what  he  calls  Archebiosis  is  possible 
— that  is,  spontaneous  generation  of  life  from  dead 
organic  matter.  Heterogenesis,  or  the  production  of 
life  from  any  form  of  inorganic  matter,  is  admittedly 
impossible.  Only  by  doing  what  is  forbidden  to  the 
Spiritualist,  only  by  " prolonging  the  line  of  the  intel- 
lect beyond  the  range  of  the  sense,"  can  Professor 
Tyndall  support  Bruno's  principle — that  from  Matter 
Life  originates.  In  his  "  Fragments  of  Science,"  he 
affirms  that  the  polarity  of  magnetism  gives  a  basis 
for  the  conception  that  "  atoms  and  molecules  are 
endowed  with  definite  attractive  and  repellent  poles, 
by  the  play  of  which  definite  forms  of  crystalline 
architecture  are  produced.  Thus  molecular  force 
becomes  structural.  It  required  no  great  boldness  of 
thought  to  expend  its  play  into  organic  nature,  and 
to  recognise  in  molecular  force  the  agency  by  which 
both  plants  and  animals  are  built  up."  Elsewhere, 
in  language  which  all  classes  of  thinkers  must  recog- 
nise as  beautiful,  he  pursues  the  same  investigation  : 

I  wish,  however,  to  show  you  the  molecules  in  the  act  of 
following  their  architectural  instincts,  and  building  themselves 
together.  You  know  how  alum,  and  nitre,  and  sugar  crystals 
are  formed.  The  substance  to  be  crystallised  is  dissolved  in  a 
liquid,  and  the  liquid  is  permitted  to  evaporate.  The  solution 
soon  becomes  supersaturated,  for  none  of  the  solid  is  carried 
away  by  evaporation  ;  and  then  the  molecules,  no  longer  able 
to  enjoy  the  freedom  of  liquidity,  close  up  together  and  form 
crystals.  My  object  now  is  to  make  this  process  rapid  enough 
to  enable  you  to  see  it,  and  still  not  too  rapid  to  be  followed  by 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  127 

the  eye.  For  this  purpose,  a  powerful  solar  microscope  and  an 
intense  source  of  light  are  needed.  They  are  both  here. 
Pouring  over  a  clean  plate  of  glass  a  solution  of  sal-ammoniac, 
and  placing  the  glass  on  its  edge,  the  excess  of  the  liquid  flows 
away,  but  a  film  clings  to  the  glass.  The  beam  employed  to 
illuminate  this  film  hastens  its  evaporation,  and  brings  it 
rapidly  into  a  state  of  supersaturation  ;  and  now  you  see  the 
orderly  progress  of  the  crystallisation  over  the  entire  screen. 
You  may  produce  something  similar  to  this  if  you  breathe  upon 
the  frost  ferns  which  overspread  your  window-panes  in  the 
winter,  and  permit  the  liquid  to  re-crystallise.  It  runs,  as  if 
alive,  into  the  most  beautiful  forms. 

In  this  case  the  crystallising  force  is  hampered  by  the  adhe- 
sion of  the  liquid  to  the  glass  ;  nevertheless,  the  play  of  power 
is  strikingly  beautiful.  In  the  next  example  our  crystals  will 
not  be  so  much  troubled  by  adhesion,  for  we  shall  liberate  the 
atoms  at  a  distance  from  the  surface  of  the  glass.  Sending  an 
electric  current  through  water,  we  decompose  the  liquid,  and 
the  bubbles  of  the  constituent  gases  rise  before  your  eyes. 
Sending  the  same  current  through  a  solution  of  acetate  of  lead, 
the  lead  is  liberated,  and  its  free  atoms  build  themselves  into 
crystals  of  marvellous  beauty.  They  grow  before  you  like 
sprouting  ferns,  exhibiting  forms  as  wonderful  as  if  they  had 
been  produced  by  the  play  of  vitality  itself.  The  mechanism 
of  the  process  is  rendered  intelligible  by  the  picture  of  atomic 
poles  ;  but  is  there  nothing  but  mechanism  here?  There  is 
something,  in  my  opinion,  which  the  mind  of  man  has  never 
yet  seized  ;  but  which,  so  far  as  research  has  penetrated,  is 
found  indissolubly  joined  with  matter.  I  have  seen  these  things 
hundreds  of  times,  but  I  never  look  at  them  without  wonder. 
And,  if  you  allow  me  a  moment's  diversion  from  my  subject, 
I  would  say  that  when  standing  in  the  spring-time  and  looking 
upon  the  sprouting  foliage,  the  lilies  of  the  field,  and  sharing 
the  general  joy  of  opening  life,  I  have  often  asked  myself 
whether  there  is  no  power,  being,  or  thing,  in  the  universe, 
whose  knowledge  of  that  of  which  I  am  so  ignorant  is  greater 
than  mine  ?  I  have  said  to  myself,  Can  it  be  possible  that 
man's  knowledge  is  the  greatest  knowledge— that  man's  life  is 
the  highest  life  ?  * 

The  Professor,  we  should  think,  is  almost  solitary  in 
seeing  any  resemblance  between  a  crystal  and  a  life 
cell.  The  microscope  instructs  us  that  real  living 
germs  have  the  power  of  motion  and  proliferation  in 
quite  a  different  measure  to  that  vouchsafed  to  a 

*  "  Crystals  and  Molecular  Force."  By  John  Tyndall,  F.R.S. 
(Longmans.) 


128  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

crystal ;  and  we  should  have  "  to  prolong  the  in- 
tellectual vision  very  far  indeed  "  before  we  could 
imagine  a  crystal  transmuting  itself  into  an  organic 
form. 

And  here,  in  view  of  that  last  quotation  from  the 
Professor,  I  cannot  help  complaining  of  a  certain 
inconsistency.  Nothing,  it  is  clear,  can  be  more 
materialistic  than  the  tendency  of  Dr.  Tyndall's 
general  teaching,  yet  it  does  not  prevent  his  ganglia, 
like  Mr.  Spencer's,  from  begetting  a  nascent  poetic 
thrill.  "  I  have  said  to  myself/'  he  cries  under  such 
an  emotion,  "  can  it  be  possible  that  man's  know- 
ledge is  the  greatest  knowledge — that  man's  life  is 
the  highest  life  ? "  Well,  admitting  for  a  moment 
that  the  theory  of  Evolution  is  strictly  correct,  may 
we  not  prolong  the  vision  so  far  forward  as  to  as- 
sume the  existence  of  beings  as  much  our  superiors, 
as  we,  in  our  highest  thoughts,  are  the  superiors  of 
the  primordial  germs  ?  Dr.  Tyndall,  possibly,  would 
smile  at  this,  and  refer  us  to  the  evidence  of  the 
senses;  but  such  beings,  if  they  existed,  would  be 
no  more  apparent  to  ordinary  sight  or  touch  than  the 
primordial  germs.  Electricity  is  atomic,  yet  it  is  in- 
visible, and  moreover  it  is  a  force.  Furthermore, 
admitting  the  theory  of  crystallisation,  would  there 
be  a  greater  invisible  leap  between  that  form  of 
matter  which  is  structural  and  that  form  of  matter 
which  we  might  call  spiritual,  than  there  is  between 
that  form  which  is  crystalline  and  that  other  which 
is  structural  ?  If  a  life  germ  can  be  developed 
out  of  a  crystal,  why  may  not  a  spirit  (using  that 
term  for  want  of  a  better)  be  developed  out  of  a 
body  ?  In  another  and  clearer  phraseology,  made 
clear  to  us  by  the  teaching  of  a  Seer  whom  Dr. 
Tyndall  utterly  misunderstands,  may  not  a  spiritual 


A   NOTE   ON  LUCRETIUS.  129 

body  issue  in  the  course  of  Evolution  from  a  body 
corporeal  ;  and,  further,  seeing  that  the  process  of 
evolution  has  been  going  on  so  long,  may  not  such 
spiritual  bodies  exist,  although  they  are  as  unre- 
cognised by  us  as  we  are  unrecognised  by  the  silk- 
worm in  its  cone  ? 

Professor  Tyndall  is  very  sarcastic  on  what  he 
calls  "  psychic "  conditions,  "  obviously  connected 
with  the  nervous  system  and  the  state  of  the  health, 
on  which  is  based  the  Vedic  doctrine  of  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  individual  into  the  universal  soul."  He 
cites  Plotinus,  Porphyry,  Wordsworth,  and  Emerson 
as  being  subject  to  such  ecstasies  ;  and  as  if  this  con- 
fusion of  types  were  not  sufficient,  he  carelessly  joins 
with  the  rest  the  name  of  Swedenborg.  Now,  in 
Swedenborg  he  might  have  found,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  a  most  powerful  ally,  as  he  would  discover  in 
a  perusal  of  the  "  Mechanism  of  the  Intercourse  of 
the  Soul  and  the  Body  ; "  where  the  great  thinker 
clearly  shows  that  the  Soul  is  finite,  that  it  is  one  of 
the  Body's  natural  parts,  that  its  seat  is  in  the  brain, 
and  that  it  resides  particularly  in  the  cortical  sub- 
stance of  the  cerebrum,  and  partly  also  in  the 
medulla,  but  is  ubiquitous  in  all  parts  of  the  brain. 
Again,  we  do  not  think  that  Swedenborg  prolongs 
his  intellectual  vision  more  unwarrantably  than  Dr. 
Tyndall,  when  he  affirms,  in  his  "  Economy  of  the 
Animal  Kingdom,"  that  "  should  any  one  of  the 
external  spheres  of  nature  be  dissolved,  the  internal 
nevertheless  remains  unharmed  ;  thus,  where  Air 
ceases  Ether  is  found ;  when  the  red  blood  dies  its 
animal  spirits  survive ;  and  though  death  destroys 
the  body  the  Soul  escapes  unscathed."  It  would  be 
wasting  time  to  prolong  this  allusion  to  him  whom 
Mr.  Emerson  calls  "  one  of  the  mastodons  of  litera- 


I3o  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

ture,"  or  specially  to  enlarge  on  his  superficially 
mystic  but  intrinsically  scientific  conceptions  of  the 
Spiritual  Body.  Nor  must  I  for  a  moment  be 
understood  as  preaching  Swedenborgianism.  I 
am  only  suggesting  that  Dr.  Tyndall's  sneer  at 
Swedenborg  was  uninstructed,  and  that  there  are 
some  few  quasi-scientific  suggestions  of  the  Swedish 
seer  which  may,  after  all,  come  as  close  to  a 
solution  of  organic  life  as  an  explanation  which 
attempts  to  connect  organic  life  with  crystalli- 
sation, and  spiritual  life  with  the  phenomena  of  mole- 
cular force. 

On  the  whole,  one  is  grateful  that  the  Professor 
sometimes  believes  in  the  possibility  of  higher  types 
than  the  human.  May  I  then  suggest  to  him  that 
perhaps  that  Matter  in  which  he  discerns  the  pro- 
mise and  potency  of  all  earthly  life,  may  in  reality 
be  only  a  phenomenon  of  spiritual  force?  and  though 
it  is  admittedly  impossible  to  tell  whence  that 
spiritual  force,  or  life,  has  emanated,  that  it  is  not 
quite  so  impossible  to  guess  whitherward  it  is  to 
grow  ?  The  sum  of  force  is  indestructible  and  un- 
changing, the  forms  of  force  are  destructible  and 
ever-varying.  We  find  Death  universal,  but  Life 
omnipotent.  We  are  not  so  sure  that  we  die,  as  that 
Death  cannot  destroy,  but  can  only  change,  the  sum 
of  force  within  us.  Unless  Dr.  Tyndall  can  prove 
to  us  that  this  sum  of  force,  including  the  basis  of 
consciousness  itself,  is  so  redistributed  among  the 
elements  that  no  possibility  of  future  existence  is 
tenable,  he  should  cut  from  his  programme  of  Mate- 
rialism his  dogma  of  the  mortality  of  the  Soul.  Unless 
he  can  prove  to  us  what  consciousness  is,  we  cannot 
accept  his  dicta  that  consciousness  dies.  "Old  de- 
cays," sings  the  poet,  "  but  foster  new  progressions  ; 


A   NOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  131 

and  this  may  be  as  true  of  the  cerebral  forces  as  of 
what  the  Professor  calls  a  "  hydrocarbon."  Again, 
since  the  atoms  are  imperishable,  and  Thought  is 
assumed  as  the  highest  evolution  of  the  atoms, 
Thought  itself  is  atomic,  Thought  itself  is  a  form 
of  force,  Thought  itself,  despite  its  infinite  fresh 
combinations,  is  indestructible,  possibly  as  much  so 
as  any  given  gas. 

In  the  course  of  his  memorable  address  at  Belfast, 
Professor  Tyndall  gave  an  imaginary  dialogue  be- 
tween a  Lucretian  and  Bishop  Butler,  apropos  of 
the  Bishop's  position  that  "  our  organised  bodies  are 
no  more  a  part  of  ourselves  than  any  other  matter 
around  us."  I  wish  I  had  space  for  the  whole 
argument,  which  I  am  compelled  to  condense.  The 
Lucretian  commences  thus : 

"  You  speak  of  c  living  powers/  '  percipient  or  perceiving 
powers,'  and  '  ourselves  ; '  but  can  you  form  a  mental  picture  of 
any  one  of  these  apart  from  the  organism  through  which  it  is 
supposed  to  act  ?  .  .  .  .  The  true  self  has  a  local  habi- 
tation in  each  of  us  ;  thus  localised  must  it  not  possess  a  form  ? 
If  so,  what  form?  ....  When  a  leg  is  amputated  the 
body  is  divided  into  two  parts  ;  is  the  true  self  in  both  of  them 
or  in  one  ?  .  .  .  .  What  if  you  begin  at  the  other  end  and 
remove,  instead  of  the  leg,  the  brain  ?  .  .  .  .  Or,  instead 
of  going  so  far  as  to  remove  the  brain  itself,  let  a  certain  por- 
tion of  its  bony  covering  be  removed,  and  let  a  rhythmic  series 
of  pressures  and  relaxations  of  pressure  be  applied  to  the  soft 
substance.  At  every  pressure  the  faculties  of  perception  and  of 
action  vanish;  at  every  relaxation  of  pressure  they  are  restored. 
.  .  .  Where  is  the  man  himself  during  the  period  of  insen- 
sibility ?  You  may  say  that  I  beg  the  question  when  I  assume 
the  man  to  have  been  unconscious,  that  he  was  really  conscious 
all  the  time,  and  has  simply  forgotten  what  has  occurred  to 

him I  do  not  think  your  theory  of  instruments 

goes  at  all  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter.  A  telegraph  operator 
has  his  instruments,  by  means  of  which  he  converses  with  the 
world  ;  our  bodies  possess  a  nervous  system,  which  plays  a 
similar  part  between  the  perceiving  power  and  external  things. 
Cut  the  wires  of  the  operator,  break  his  battery,  demagnetise 
his  needle  ;  by  this  means  you  certainly  sever  his  connection 
with  the  world  ;  .  .  .  .  but  the  operator  survives,  and  he 

K  2 


I32  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

knows  that  he  survives.  .  .  .  Another  consideration.  .  .  . 
the  brain  may  change  from  health  to  disease,  and  through  such 
a  change  the  most  exemplary  man  may  be  converted  into  a 
debauchee  or  a  murderer.  .  .  .  Can  the  brain  or  can  it  not 
act  in  this  distempered  way,  without  the  intervention  of  the 
immortal  reason  ?  " 

And  the  Bishop,  whose  arguments  we  also  condense, 
replies : 

"You  are   a   Lucretian,   and  from    the   combination   and 
separation   of  insensate  atoms   deduce   all  terrestrial  things, 
including  organic  forms  and  their  phenomena.     Let  me  tell 
you,  in  the  first  instance,  how  far  I  am  prepared  to  go  with 
you.     I  admit  that  you  can  build  crystalline  forms  out  of  this 
play  of  molecular  force  ;    that  the   diamond,  amethyst,  and 
snow-star  are  truly  wonderful   structures  which  are  thus  pro- 
duced.    I  will  go  further  and  acknowledge  that  even  a  tree  or 
flower  might  in  this  way  be  organised.     Nay,  if  you  can  show 
me  an  animal  without  sensation,  I  will  concede  to  you  that  it 
also  might  be  put  together  by  the  suitable  play  of  molecular 
force.     .     .     .     Now  comes  my  difficulty.     Your  atoms   are 
individually  without  sensation,   much   more  are  they  without 
intelligence.     May  I  ask  you,  then,  to  try  your  hand  upon  this 
problem  ?    Take  your  dead  hydrogen  atoms,  your  dead  oxygen 
atoms,  your  dead  carbon  atoms,  your  dead   nitrogen  atoms, 
your  dead  phosphorus  atoms,  and  all  the  other  atoms,  dead  as 
grains  of  shot,  of  which  the  brain  is  formed.     Imagine  them 
separate  and  sensationless,  and  observe  their  running  together 
and  forming  all  imaginable  combinations.     This,  as  a  purely 
mechanical  process,  is  seeable  by  the  mind.     But  can  you  see, 
or  dream,  or  in  any  way  imagine,  how  out  of  that  mechanical 
act,  and  from  these  individually  dead  atoms,  sensation,  thought, 
and  emotion  are  to  arise  ?....!  am  able  to  pursue  to 
the  central  organ  the  motion  thus  imparted  at  the  periphery, 
and  to  see  in  idea  the  very  molecules  of  the  brain  thrown  into 
tremor.     My  insight  is  not  baffled  by  these  physical  processes. 
What  baffles  and  bewilders  me,  is  the  notion  that  from  these 
physical  tremors  things  so  utterly  incongruous  with  them  as 
sensation,  thought,  and  emotion  can  be  derived.     .     .     .     Your 
difficulty,  then,  as  I  see  you  are  ready  to  admit,  is  quite  as 
great  as  mine.     You  cannot  satisfy  the  human  understanding 
in   such    demand    for    logical  continuity  between    molecular 
processes  and  the  phenomena  of  consciousness." 

All  this  is  very  admirable,  if  we  can  only  imagine 
any  one  admitting  offhand,  that  "  trees  and  flowers  " 


A   XOTE  ON  LUCRETIUS.  133 

mi-lit  be  organised  out  of  the  play  of  molecular  force ; 
and  Professor  Tyndall  honestly  exclaims,  "  I  hold  the 
Bishop's  reasoning  to  be  quite  unanswerable/'  He 
might,  had  he  read  his  Svvedenborg,  have  constructed 
for  the  Bishop  a  train  of  still  more  unanswerable 
arguments ;  or  turning  to  a  contemporary  writer,  he 
may  find  in  Mr.  Allanson  Picton's  ingenious  essays  * 
a  still  further  series  of  proofs  that  Matter  is  in  its 
ultimate  essence  spiritual,  and  that  we  are  certain  of 
one  thing  only,  the  existence  of  spiritual  life. 

I  have  left  Lucretius  far  behind  me,  gazing  still 
with  a  sense  of  complete  mastery  on  his  primordial 
universe,  where  there  is  no  room,  not  even  an  inter- 
mundia,  where  the  gods,  or  a  God,  may  dwell.  In 
investigating  the  creed  of  his  representative  modern 
followers,  of  him  to  whom  the  torch  of  Lucretian 
illuminative  genius  has  been  passed  on,  I  have 
found  more  comfort  combined  with  far  less  coherence. 
Professor  Tyndall  is  certainly  a  materialist,  though 
he  has  no  particular  affection  for  the  name,  and  he  is 
also,  but  in  no  offensive  sense,  an  atheist,  though  he 
refuses  to  put  that  word  upon  his  banner.  In  days 
when  so  much  heat  is  still  introduced  into  popular 
controversy,  his  caution  is  perhaps  necessary  ;  yet  I 
should  admire  him  more  if  he  showed  more  com- 
pletely the  courage  of  his  convictions.  His  theory  of 
organic  matter  is  destructive  to  any  sort  of  Deism  ; 
indeed,  so  far  as  I  see,  it  leaves  no  room  whatever 
for  even  the  higher  Pantheism,  though  it  is  full  of 
that  Lower  Pantheism  which  sees  in  every  clod  and 
stone  the  potency  of  universal  life.  He  disclaims 
anthropomorphism,  but  he  cannot  free  his  "  ganglia  " 


*  "The  Mystery  of  Matter."    By  Allanson  Picton.     (Mac- 
millan.) 


134 


A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 


altogether  of  mysterious  "  thrills."  His  tone  is  one 
of  quiet  insinuation,  rather  than  of  formal  avowal ; 
but  his  highest  mood  is  poetic,  not  scientific.  If  he 
would  only  express  his  ideas  in  poetry,  much  of  his 
writing  would  be  as  valuable  as  much  of  Lucretius, 
and  he  could  soar  to  sublime  flights  of  delicious 
uncertainty  by  his  admirable  plan  of  "prolonging 
the  intellectual  vision  beyond  the  region  of  the 
senses!" 


FREE   THOUGHT    IN   AMERICA. 


ROBERT   INGERSOLL. 

THERE  is  a  notion  even  in  refined  circles  in  America 
that  the  influence  of  a  man  like  Colonel  Robert 
Ingersoll  may  be  an  influence  for  good.  I  altogether 
fail  to  see  it.  While  doing  full  justice  to  the  honesty, 
the  courage,  and  the  good  humour  of  this  remarkable 
orator,  I  am  convinced  that  he  is  precisely  the  sort  of 
teacher — I  had  almost  written  devil's  advocate — to 
whom  Americans  should  just  now  shut  their  ears. 
Free  thought  should  be  distinguished  from  the  of- 
fences against  common  intelligence  committed  by  a 
Philistine  of  the  Philistines.  Ingersoll  enters  the 
temples  of  religion  with  his  hat  on  one  side,  a  cigar 
in  his  mouth,  and  a  jest  upon  his  lips.  No  matter 
who  the  god  may  be — Vishnu,  Buddha,  Apollo,  or 
Jesus — he  is  ready  to  tackle  him  in  his  own  peculiar 
vocabulary.  His  philosophy  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  words  of  Burns  : 

To  make  a  happy  fireside  clime 

To  weans  and  wife — 
That's  the  true  pathos  and  sublime 

Of  human  life ! 


136  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

This  philosophy  is  all  very  well  in  its  way,  just  as 
well  as  eating  and  drinking,  dancing,  marrying  and 
giving  in  marriage,  and  infant-dandling ;  but  if  it 
were  all-sufficient,  George  the  Third  would  have 
been  a  great  king,  and  Voltaire  would  have  been  a 
great  poet.  To  take  Colonel  Ingersoll  seriously,  of 
course,  would  be  like  asking  for  reverence  from  Mark 
Twain.  He  represents  the  natural  reaction  of 
American  Bohemianism  against  the  Puritanism  of 
Boston  and  the  overstrained  Transcendentalism  of 
Brook  Farm.  But  he  is  just  the  sort  of  person  of 
whom  America  does  not  stand  in  need.  The  pre- 
dominant vices  of  America,  especially  as  represented 
by  its  great  cities,  are  its  irreverence,  its  recklessness, 
its  impatience — in  one  word,  its  Materialism.  A  nation 
in  which  the  artistic  sense  is  almost  dead,  which  is 
practically  without  a  literature,  which  is  impatient  of 
all  sanctions  and  indifferent  to  all  religions,  which  is 
corrupt  from  the  highest  pinnacle  of  its  public  life 
down  to  the  lowest  depth  of  its  journalism,  which  is 
at  once  thin-skinned  under  criticism  and  aggressive  to 
criticise,  which  worships  material  forces  in  every 
shape  and  form,  which  despises  conventional  con- 
ditions, yet  is  slavish  to  ignoble  fashions,  which,  too 
hasty  to  think  for  itself,  takes  recklessly  at  second- 
hand any  old  or  new-clothes  philosophy  that  may  be 
imported  from  Europe,  yet,  while  wearing  the  raiment 
openly,  mocks  and  ridicules  the  civilisation  that  wove 
the  fabric — such  a  nation,!  think,  might  be  spared 
the  spectacle  of  an  elderly  gentleman  in  modern  cos- 
tume trampling  on  the  lotus,  the  rose,  and  the  lily  in 
the  gardens  of  the  gods.  The  exhibition  can  do  no 
good;  it  may  do  no  little  harm.  If  the  science  of 
mythology  did  not  exist,  if  the  old  gods  or  the  new 
had  any  bloody  altars  left,  if  the  tongue  of  free 


FREE   THOUGHT  IN  AMERICA.  137 

thought  had  not  been  loosened  once  and  for  ever,  it 
might  be  another  matter  ;  but  the  danger  now  is,  not 
that  men  may  believe  too  much,  but  that  they  may 
believe  too  little;  that  in  due  time  scepticism,  which 
has  demolished  all  religions  and  fatally  discredited 
the  divine  religion  of  poetry  itself,  may  turn  the 
Temple  of  Mystery  into  a  bear-garden  or  a  beer- 
garden,  exchange  the  language  of  literature  for  the 
argot  of  the  cheap  press,  and  Americanise  even  the 
sentiment  of  humanity.  "  I  beg  to  remind  honourable 
gentlemen/'  said  Benjamin  Disraeli,  on  a  memorable 
occasion,  "  that  we  owe  much  to  the  Jews."  I  beg  to 
remind  the  Colonel  Ingersolls  and  Mark  Twains  of 
that  continent  that  we  owe  much  to  the  gods,  without 
whom,  when  all  is  said  and  done, 

The  world  would  smell  like  what  it  is — a  tomb  ! 

But  for  them,  Europe  would  have  been  Americanised 
long  ago ;  but  for  them,  Europe  would  have  arrived 
centuries  since  at  the  blessed  era  of  presidential  elec- 
tions, colossal  public  swindles,  races  for  money-bags, 
the  torturing  rack  of  the  interviewer,  and  the  in- 
quisition of  the  newspaper  ;  but  for  them,  but  for  the 
divine  tyrants  and  instructors  of  mankind,  malignant 
or  benignant,  terrible  or  beautiful,  the  pessimism  of 
Schopenhauer  and  Leopardi  might  have  been  ante- 
dated a  thousand  years.  For  my  own  part,  I  should 
prefer  even  to  accept  hell  with  John  Calvin,  rather 
than  to  eat  cakes,  drint  ale,  and  munch  hot  ginger 
with  Colonel  Ingersoll.  He  is  the  boy  in  the  gallery, 
cracking  nuts  and  making  precocious  comments 
during  the  performance  of  the  tragedy  of  life  ;  blind 
to  the  splendour  of  the  scenery,  deaf  to  the  beauty  of 
the  dialogue,  indifferent  to  the  pathetic  or  tragic  solici- 
tations of  the  players  ;  seeing  in  Christ  or  Buddha  or 


138  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Jehovah  only  a  leading  man  spouting  platitudes,  and 
indifferently  dressed  for  the  part  he  is  playing.  A  great 
mythus  is  to  him  a  great  "  lie,"  nothing  more ;  a  great 
poetical  theology  is  only  an  invention  of  the  arch- 
enemy. Hugely  does  he  enjoy  the  joke  of  the  garden 
of  Eden  or  the  tree  of  Iggdrassil ;  clearly  does  he 
perceive,  having  hung  round  the  stage-door  of  the 
world,  that  the  goddesses  are  only  ballet-girls,  ex- 
hibiting their  nudity  for  so  much  a  night.  For  him 
^Eschylus  has  no  terror,  Sophocles  no  charm,  the 
author  of  the  Book  of  Job  no  pathos ;  everything  is 
leather  and  prunella,  except  the  performance  of 
Harlequin. 

That  such  a  person  should  have  a  large  following, 
among  a  generation  so  much  of  his  way  of  thinking, 
is  no  matter  for  surprise ;  a  few  centuries  ago  it  might 
have  been  a  cause  for  joy ;  but  in  the  nineteenth 
century  it  is  truly  sad,  as  showing  how  little  Science 
has  done,  after  all,  to  elevate  the  intellectual  condition 
of  the  masses.  The  same  uninstructed  influence  that 
is  thus  brought  to  bear  upon  religion  would  speedily 
be  fatal,  and  already,  as  I  have  suggested,  threatens 
to  be  fatal,  to  all  poetry,  all  true  literature,  all  great 
art,  and,  in  the  long  run,  all  speculative  science. 
Colonel  Ingersoll  is  very  fond  of  proclaiming  his  ad- 
miration for  the  great  scientific  teachers  of  the  age  ; 
but  in  reality  he  is  as  far  away  in  spirit  from  the 
thought  of  Darwin  as  from  the  vision  of  Shakespeare, 
as  obtuse  to  the  scientific  problems  as  to  the  pathetic 
poetic  fallacy.  Religion  is  the  grave,  elder  daughter 
of  Poetry,  and  to  understand  religious  questions  a 
man  must  have  the  heart  of  a  poet.  Science,  too,  is 
the  daughter  of  Poetry ;  indeed,  her  youngest  born ; 
while  calmer  and  colder  than  her  mother,  she  has  the 
same  far-away,  rapt  look  into  the  heaven  of  heavens ; 


FREE   THOUGHT  IN  AMERICA.  139 

and  her  teaching  is  for  poetic  hearts  also,  not  for 
those  who  confound  her  with  her  sordid  and  hard- 
working handmaid,  Invention.  Science  ranges  the 
universe,  touches  the  farthest  suns,  reaches  the  farthest 
cloud  confines,  and  cries  honestly  and  loudly,  "  Thus 
far — no  farther — here  I  pause;"  and  then  even  she 
begins  to  dream.  Invention  squats  on  the  ground, 
sets  her  little  water-wheel,  lights  her  little  lamp, 
pieces  her  mechanical  puzzles,  does  homely  work, 
delightful  and  useful  to  everybody.  But  Invention- 
worship  is  fetish-worship,  and  Colonel  Ingersoll  is 
a  fetish-worshipper — that  is  to  say,  an  individual 
exactly  at  the  savage  stage  where  neither  religion  nor 
science  begins.  To  go  to  him  for  religious  guidance, 
is  like  asking  a  native  of  the  kingdom  of  Dahomey  to 
favour  us  with  his  ideas  on  Free-will,  the  Incarnation, 
the  philosophy  of  Plato,  the  art  of  Raphael,  the 
poetry  of  ^Eschylus,  the  music  of  Beethoven,  and  the 
philosophy  of  Comte  or  Spencer. 

The  Christian  stage,  whatever  objection  we  may 
take  to  it,  is  higher  than  the  fetish-stage,  and  the 
lowest  form  of  anthropomorphism  is  infinitely  su- 
perior to  totem-worship.  The  mass  of  mankind 
do  not  need  to  be  told  that  it  is  well  to  fill 
their  bellies,  to  love  their  children,  to  live  amicably 
with  one  another,  to  accept  no  guidance  but  their 
own  very  questionable  "  common-sense ;  "  all  that 
is  taught  to  them  of  right  and  of  necessity  by  the 
conditions  of  that  period  of  evolution  which  they 
have  already  attained.  What  they  require  to  learn 
is,  that  life  necessitates  divine  sanctions  as  well 
as  cheery  conditions  ;  that  the  gods  are  not  dead, 
but  living — imperishable  ideals  fashioned  by  the 
sublimest  and  supremest  conceptions  of  mankind  ; 
that  the  truth  of  any  religion  lies  not  in  its  dogma, 


i4o  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

but  in  its  moral  beauty  or  poetical  imperishability, 
because  just  so  far  as  it  is  beautiful  is  it  funda- 
mentally and  actually  true  ;  that  our  sharpest  hours 
of  suffering  contain  our  clearest  moments  of  insight; 
and  that  human  love  and  sympathy  are  born,  not  of 
common  junketing,  but  of  common  despair  and  sor- 
row. The  gospel  of  hot  ginger,  as  preached  by 
Colonel  Ingersoll,  would  soon  make  of  New  York 
another  Sodom.  Fortunately,  such  a  man  as 
Octavius  Frothingham  is  hard  by,  to  vindicate  the 
poetry  of  religion  against  the  champions  of  cakes 
and  ale,  and  to  prove  that  free  thought,  even  in 
America,  does  not  necessarily  imply  free  permission 
to  outrage  your  neighbour's  most  sacred  convictions. 


II. 
OCTAVIUS  FROTHINGHAM. 

MR.  FROTHINGHAM  is  well  known  to  most  readers 
of  religious  literature  as  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
and  enlightened  apostles  of  free  thought  or  radical 
religion  in  America.  Until  quite  lately,  I  believe, 
he  preached  every  Sunday  in  New  York ;  with 
the  field  of  his  present  labours  I  am  unacquainted ; 
but  my  knowledge  of  him  is  altogether  based  on  his 
writings  and  on  Mr.  Stedman's  little  monograph — 
one  of  those  admirably  lucid  bits  of  crystallisation 
for  which  the  writer  is  distinguished.  Of  course, 
a  man  educated  like  myself  in  the  school  of  Eng- 
lish Jacobinism  finds  in  Mr.  Frothingham  a  not 
very  novel  type  of  thinker,  uttering  sentiments  with 


FREE    THOUGHT  IX  AMERICA.  \\\ 

which  the  world  of  free  thought  has  long  been 
familiar;  but  the  author  of  "Transcendentalism  in 
New  England "  has  a  distinct  individuality,  often 
perfervid,  occasionally  convincing,  and  never  tire- 
some. His  style  is  admirable,  even  where  his 
matter  is  questionable,  as  it  now  and  then  is  ;  and, 
on  the  whole,  America  is  to  be  congratulated  on  the 
privilege  of  listening  to  such  a  man.  But  does 
America  listen  to  him  ?  It  would  very  much  as- 
tonish me  to  hear  that  it  did.  His  faith  is  far  too 
filmy,  his  foothold  much  too  unsteady,  to  carry 
conviction  to  the  hearts  of  a  hasty  generation.  His 
tolerance  to  all  religions,  all  opinions,  all  orthodoxies 
and  heresies,  is  beautiful  and  welcome,  but  his  infinite 
patience  lacks,  to  my  mind,  the  shaping  power  of 
conviction.  He  has  set  his  soul  free  of  every 
bond  and  shackle,  but  he  leaves  it  to  beat  the 
empty  air.  With  all  this,  it  must  be  clearly  un- 
derstood that  his  written  works  have  the  highest  of 
all  literary  merits,  that  of  directly  stimulating  thought 
in  the  reader  ;  they  are  full  of  grave,  wise,  tender, 
«ven  profound  things,  expressed  in  perfect  language  ; 
they  are  reverent  to  the  very  extremes  of  their  gentle 
audacity;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that 
they  have  had  a  deeply  beneficent  influence  when- 
ever and  wherever  they  have  been  studied.  But  the 
fatal  spirit  of  a  self-destructive  latitudinarianism, 
which  has  paralysed  the  will  of  every  transcenden- 
talist  from  Hegel  downward,  possesses  Mr.  Frothing- 
ham  also.  His  message  to  men  carries  no  conviction, 
for  it  has  neither  the  hate  of  hate  nor  the  love  of 
love  ;  it  lacks  the  fertilising  energy  and  superb 
bigotry  of  a  logical  belief. 

Mr.  Frothingham,  for  example,  utterly  repudiates 
Anthropomorphism.    The  universe,  in  his  conception, 


142  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

is,  as  it  was  to  Spinoza,  as  it  has  been  to  every  true 
transcendentalist,  a  system  of  universal  Law,  entirely 
divorced  from  personality.  From  one  point  of  view, 
this  conception  is  rational  and  impregnable;  from 
another,  it  is  inexpedient,  not  to  say  trivial.  No  sane 
man  doubts  the  profundity  of  the  current  ideas  on 
which  Mr.  Frothingham  sails  so  cheerfully;  of  the 
"  stream  of  tendency  "  and  the  "  power  beyond  our- 
selves which  works  for  righteousness;"  but  many 
men  doubt,  as  I  do,  the  scientific  necessity,  or 
the  mental  possibility,  of  divorcing  the  idea  of 
God  from  the  idea  of  personality.  The  poetical 
image  of  the  magnified  non-natural  man  at  least  hits 
the  mark  better  than  the  preposterous  images  of 
"  streams  "  and  "  tendencies  "  and  impersonal  work- 
ing "  powers  "  beyond  humanity.  Very  instructive  it 
is  to  observe,  in  this  connection,  how  the  apostle  of 
blind  law,  taken  off  his  guard,  appropriates  the 
anthropomorphic  metaphors  : 


The  Radical  has  no  definition ;  he  does  not  venture  on  a 
written  definition.  He  will  not  define  or  confine  the  infinite. 
He  has  no  interpretation  which  he  can  accept  or  impose  upon 
anybody  else  ;  but  the  substance  of  the  idea  he  holds  in  a 
manner  so  transcendental,  grand,  vast,  and  beautiful  that  the 
others  dwarf  themselves  into  utter  insignificance.  The  Hebrew 
Jehovah  seems  to  him  a  fanciful  and  fantastical  idea ;  the 
Christian's  triune  deity  is  limited  ;  and  the  theist's  conception 
of  the  personal  God  is  bounded.  The  Radical  believes  in  the 
universal  law,  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  sweeping  through  the 
world,  administering  the  least  things,  controlling  the  greatest, 
holding  close  relations  between  you  and  me,  holding  in  the 
hollow  of  its  hand2\\  the  affairs  of  all  the  nations  of  the  globe. 
This  idea  of  law — material,  intellectual,  spiritual — compre- 
hends everything,  all  the  domain  of  reason,  all  the  domain  of 
hope,  so  vast  that  no  faith  can  scale  its  heights,  so  tender  that 
one  can  lie  like  a  child  on  its  bosom,  so  mighty  and  majestic 
that  nobody  need  be  afraid  that  it  cannot  overcome  every 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  highest  and  noblest  advance.  ("  The 
Mission  of  the  Radical  Preacher."  By  O.  B.  Frothingham.) 


FREE   THOUGHT  IN  AMERICA.  143 

Which,  after  all,  is  the  most  illogical  and  fantastic, 
the  idea  of  a  Hebrew  Jehovah,  or  of  a  Christian 
triune  deity,  or  the  picture  of  a  Universal  Law  that 
"  administers  "  and  "  controls/'  holds  affairs  in  "  the 
hollow  of  its  hand,"  and  is  so  "  tender  that  one  can 
lie  like  a  child  on  its  bosom  "  ?  Every  one  admits 
that  God,  in  the  Absolute,  is  unknowable  and  incon- 
ceivable ;  but  the  consensus  of  human  experience  has 
established  that  the  only  image  that  can  represent 
His  relation  to  conditioned  creatures  is  the  human  or 
anthropomorphic  one,  though  it  has  made  modern 
scientists  so  angry.  After  all,  is  not  the  rejection  of 
the  popular  image  made  in  the  most  "  crass  "  spirit 
of  transcendentalism  ?  Where  is  the  wisdom  of  a 
criticism  that  would  endow  blind  law  with  "  hands  " 
and  a  "  bosom,"  and  in  the  same  breath  object  to  the 
terminology  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  ? 

Elsewhere  in  the  same  book  from  which  I  have 
quoted,  Mr.  Frothingham's  language  becomes  less 
contradictory,  but  even  more  extraordinary  —  so 
extraordinary,  indeed,  that,  if  it  came  from  any  other 
pen,  one  might  presume  that  the  writer  had  no 
spiritual  claim  to  speak  in  cathedrcl  on  religious 
topics  at  all.  In  proclaiming  his  revolt  from  the 
Christian  religion,  and  his  rejection  of  the  Christian 
idea,  he  admits,  regretfully,  that  the  Christian  faith 
still  prevails,  that  it  keeps  alive  the  potent  activities 
that  sustain  the  life  of  Christendom.  Nevertheless, 
he  adds,  "  it  is  a  superstition  ;  it  is  not  grounded  on 
history,  on  knowledge,  on  science,  on  fact,  but  it  is  a 
fancy,  an  imagination,  a  tradition  ;"  and  now,  in  the 
natural  course  of  things,  it  is  dissolving  away  before 
the  breath  of  science.  People,  he  naively  affirms, 
reject  it  in  the  great  centres  of  activity — in  Paris,  in 
Berlin,  in  London,  in  New  York !  Among  other 


144  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

reasons  for  the  long  permanence  of  this  false  faith, 
and  its  still  surviving-  power,  he  gives  the  following : 
I.  The  exceeding  antiquity  of  the  system;  2.  The 
hindrances  so  long  thrown  in  the  way  of  Biblical 
criticism ;  3.  Mirabile  dictu,  the  persistence  with 
which  the  faith  is  taught.  The  last  reason  is  a 
superb  11011  sequitur ;  it  is  simply  affirming  that  the 
zeal  with  which  an  army  fights  its  battles  is  in  direct 
ratio  to  the  weakness  of  its  cause  !  But,  not  content 
with  so  wonderful  an  affirmation,  Mr.  Frothingham 
goes  on  to  arraign  Christianity  because  it  is  the 
"  religion  of  sorrow."  He  quotes  both  Jesus  and  Paul 
in  illustration  of  his  statement.  Then  he  adds,  not 
without  eloquence  : 

Through  the  chinks  we  can  see  the  light.  The  condition  of 
man  becomes  more  comfortable,  more  easy  ;  the  hope  of  man 
is  more  visible  ;  the  endeavour  of  man  is  more  often  crowned 
with  success  ;  the  attempt  to  solve  the  darkest  life-problems  is 
not  so  desperate  as  it  was.  The  reformer  meets  with  fewer 
rebuffs;  the  philanthropist  does  not  despair  as  he  did.  The 
light  is  dawning.  The  great  teachers  of  knowledge  multiply, 
bear  their  burdens  more  and  more  steadily  ;  the  traditions  of 
truth  and  knowledge  are  becoming  established  in  the  intellec- 
tual world.  It  is  so  ;  and  those  of  us  who  have  caught  a  vision 
of  the  better  times  coming  through  reason,  through  knowledge, 
through  manly  and  womanly  endeavour,  have  caught  a  sight 
of  a  Christendom  passing  away,  of  a  religion  of  sorrow  de- 
clining, of  a  gospel  preached  for  the  poor  no  longer  useful  to  a 
world  that  is  mastering  its  own  problems  of  poverty  and  lifting 
itself  out  of  disabling  misery  into  wealth  without  angelic  assis- 
tance. This  is  our  consolation  ;  and  while  we  admit,  clearly 
and  frankly,  the  real  power  of  the  popular  faith,  we  also  see 
the  pillars  on  which  a  new  faith  rests,  which  shall  be  a  faith 
not  of  sorrow,  but  of  joy.  ("  The  Rising  and  the  Setting  Faith, 
and  other  Discourses."  By  O.  B.  Frothingham.) 

Is  it  necessary  to  demolish  this  cumbrous  snow- 
heap  of  misconception,  to  point  out  the  fallacy  that 
confuses  the  Christian  sentiment  with  the  utilitarian 
philosophy  of  loaves  and  fishes?  If  all  that  Jesus 
meant  was  that  the  poor  should  become  the  rich  in 


FREE   THOUGHT  IN  AMERICA.  145 

another  world,  and  the  suffering  become  the  joyful ; 
if  the  kernel  of  His  teaching  was  merely,  as  narrow 
logicians  have  suggested,  the  notion  that  bad  luck 
here  would  of  necessity  ensure  a  bonus  elsewhere, 
Christianity  would  stand  but  a  poor  chance  at  the 
hands  of  either  the  higher  or  the  lower  criticism. 
What  Jesus  did  teach,  or  what  we  have  learned  at 
least  by  the  Divine  Ideal  that  He  afforded,  was,  and  is, 
that  worldly  knowledge,  worldly  prosperity,  worldly 
success  and  happiness,  are  poor  things  compared  with 
the  heaven  of  sin  vanquished,  the  other  world  of 
supreme  love  and  insight.  If  the  triumph  of  the 
political  economist  were  quite  secure ;  if  the  earth 
were  equally  divided  among  men  according  to  some 
such  scheme  as  that  of  Henry  George  ;  if  there 
were  no  workhouses  in  it,  and  no  prisons,  the  poor 
would  still  inherit  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  for  the 
true  poor  of  the  Christian  idea  are  those  who  despise 
ignoble  prizes,  who  are  indifferent  to  vain  knowledge, 
who  have  found  in  the  certainty  of  human  failure  the 
sublimity  of  sympathetic  love  and  insight.  It  must 
be  borne  in  mind,  too,  that  Jesus  could  sit  down  with 
the  rich  man  as  well  as  the  poor,  when  the  rich  man 
was  poor  "  in  spirit."  To  refute  Mr.  Frothingham 
here  would  be  to  refute  the  whole  argument  of  utili- 
tarianism, which  has  already  been  done,  or  attempted, 
and  is  of  course  far  beyond  the  scope  of  this  paper  ; 
nor  am  I  in  any  way  holding  a  brief  for  the  Christian 
religion,  or  speaking  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
orthodox  believer.  But  let  us  have  fair  play  on  both 
sides,  nor  attempt  to  answer  the  proposition  that  one 
may  be  multiplied  into  three  by  an  assertion  that  two 
and  two  are  four.  Elsewhere  Mr.  Frothingham  clearly 
expresses  his  conviction  that  perfect  happiness  is 
simply  impossible  under  mundane  conditions,  and 


146  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

that  mere  knowledge  and  power  may  be,  and  gene- 
rally are,  in  the  nature  of  vanity.  As  long  as  these 
things  are  true,  there  is  room  in  our  dialectics  for  the 
Christian  argument  that  the  compensations  of  a 
higher  and  nobler  life  are  precisely  what  is  needed  for 
the  settlement  of  the  complex  human  problem.  It  is 
melancholy  to  find  a  thinker  like  Mr.  Frothingham, 
among  Americans,  of  all  people  in  the  world,  arguing 
that  there  is  to  be  a  millennium  of  inexhaustible  dry 
goods  and  of  physical  prosperity,  compared  with 
which  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  would  be  but  an 
ineffective  performance. 

Mr.  Frothingham  writes  very  eloquently  on  evolu- 
tion ;  accepts  all  its  splendid  suggestions,  both  in  the 
material  and  in  the  moral  world  ;  shows  clearly  that 
cause  follows  effect  in  the  social  'as  well  as  the 
physical  sphere,  and  that  out  of  evil  must  come  evil, 
and  out  of  good  must  issue  good.  He  accepts,  if  I 
understand  him  rightly,  the  Comtist  notion  of  the 
perfectibility  of  Humanity,  and  infinitely  prefers  the 
Grand  Etre,  or  divine  adumbration  of  the  genius  of 
man,  to  either  Jehovah  or  Jesus,  Buddha  or  Balder. 
He  does  not,  however,  imitate  Colonel  Ingersoll  in 
treating  any  of  these  gods  with  disrespect,  but  he 
nevertheless  measures  them  with  his  free-thought 
foot-rule,  and  finds  them,  at  the  best,  only  a  cubit 
high.  What,  after  all,  is  this  Grand  litre  of  which  we 
hear  so  much?  Not  the  Son  of  Man  transubstan- 
tiated, but  the  Spirit  of  Man  glorified ;  not  the 
Paraclete,  the  Redeemer,  or  the  Divine  Ideal,  but  the 
vague,  impersonal,  stupendous,  and  overpowering  out- 
come of  all  human  intelligence,  effort,  suffering,  limit- 
less struggle,  and  despair.  His  other  names  are  l 
Science,  Knowledge,  Intellectual  Victory,  Moral  Su-  jUS 
premacy;  his  other  name  will  be  Happiness,  or  t  jn 


FREE   THOUGHT  IN  AMERICA,  147 

Summum  Bonum,  by-and-by.  Well,  when  our  Grand 
Eire  looks  forward,  what  will  be  his  prospect?  A 
reign  of  indefinite  but  not  endless  length,  cut  short 
inevitably,  sooner  or  later,  by  the  cataclysm  of  our 
solar  system.  In  the  far  future,  then,  inevitable 
Death.  When  he  looks  backward,  what  must  be  his 
retrospect  ?  Far  away  as  the  first  beginnings  of  life 
he  traces  the  progression  from  pain  to  pain,  marks 
the  graves  of  the  generations,  from  the  tomb  of  the 
pterodactyl  in  the  chalk  to  the  sepulchre  of  Franklin 
among  the  Arctic  snows.  Far  backward  then,  Death 
too ;  aeons  of  agony,  vistas  of  the  types  that  have 
perished  to  fashion  the  Grand  Eire  for  his  short 
ecstatic  reign.  Science  may  smile  at  the  thought  of 
compensation ;  but  surely  the  Grand  Etre,  with  his 
supreme  potentialities  of  pity,  must  say  to  himself, 
"  Alas  and  alas  !  though  my  children  now  rejoice,  like 
motes  in  the  sunbeam,  what  of  those  who  have  been 
destroyed,  tortured,  and  obliterated  in  the  long  dark- 
ness that  preceded  this  splendid  dawn  of  day  ? "  And 
so,  after  all,  the  Grand  £tre,  with  all  his  good  inten- 
tions, finds  his  poor  feet  slipping  and  sinking  in  the 
arid  sands  of  pessimism,  and  the  only  gospel  left  for 
his  v/orshippers  to  preach  will  be  the  old  weary  gospel 
of  the  materialist,  "  Eat,  drink,  and  be  happy,  for  to- 
morrow we  die ! " 


L   2 


I48  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

III. 
THE  HOPE  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE. 

BUT  to  do  Mr.  Frothingham  justice,  he  is  not  a  pes- 
simist. In  one  of  the  very  finest  of  his  essays,  the 
sermon  on  "  Immortality/'  a  piece  of  writing  that 
can  be  read  and  re-read  for  its  marvellous  clearness 
of  exposition  and  its  consummate  beauty  of  ex- 
pression, he  echoes,  though  somewhat  half-heartedly, 
the  great  hope  of  the  human  race  for  an  individual 
existence  after  death.  But  in  scrutinising  his  argu- 
ment closely,  we  perceive  that,  while  he  welcomes 
with  enthusiasm  the  conception  of  the  Grand  Etre, 
and  states  that  chimerical  Being's  case  with  splendid 
eloquence,  he  is  lost  in  amazement  that  Humanity 
ever  contained  that  other  idea  of  a  personal  immor- 
tality ;  can  see  no  rational  excuse  for  it  ;  fears, 
indeed,  that  it  is  altogether  too  shadowy  to  be  at 
all  tangible.  All  he  can  venture  to  say  in  plea  for 
it  is  that  its  very  audacity  favours  it,  its  very  wild- 
ness  is  its  guarantee.  Here,  again,  we  get  frank  con- 
fession, but  bad  logic.  How  a  faith  can  be  vindi- 
cated by  its  own  sheer  improbability,  how  a  belief 
may  be  true  because  it  goes  in  the  teeth  of  all  ex- 
perience, I  leave  for  the  transcendentalists  of  free 
thought  to  decide.  I  believe  the  evolutionists  have 
clearly  explained  how  the  notion  of  life  after  death 
"  developed  "  easily  out  of  the  first  superstitions  of 
the  human  race,  and  how  its  permanence  in  all  com- 
munities and  most  individuals  proceeds  from  the 
permanence  of  other  instincts  seemingly  imperishable. 
But  where  I  join  issue  with  Mr.  Frothingham  is  at 
the  one  point  where  issue  is  possible — that  the  idea  of 


FREE    THOUGHT  IN  AMERICA.  149 

immortality  is  irrational  and  opposed  to  common  ex- 
perience ;  for  if  it  were  so,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
it  would  have  been  "  obliterated "  long  ago  in  the 
process  of  evolution.  It  is  not  because  it  is  pre- 
posterous, but  because  it  is  probable,  that  it  has  kept 
its  strenuous  hold  on  the  hearts  of  mankind.  Jesus,  in 
His  supreme  practical  wisdom,  in  His  relentless  logic, 
perceived  this  fully,  perceived  that  this  very  idea  was 
the  natural,  indeed  the  only,  escape  from  between  the 
horrors  of  our  mundane  dilemma.  And  forthwith  (for 
I  hold  that  this  Man,  whatever  His  credentials,  was 
scientific  or  nothing)  He  proceeded  to  verification. 
Opening  the  human  heart,  He  found  that  it  demanded 
ampler  life  on  account  of  the  infinite  possibilities  of 
love  without  it.  Examining  the  social  organism,  He 
saw  that  its  structure  was  welded  together  by  the  blood 
of  human  martyrdom,  that  every  hope  and  every 
aspiration  within  it  were  based  upon  the  certainty  that 
consciousness,  and  all  its  consequent  affections,  must 
be  permanent,  and  therefore  immaterial.  The  law  of 
growth  was  absolute,  the  indestructibility  of  force  was 
sure,  and  the  permanence  of  force  was  the  certainty  of 
the  Soul.  As  for  His  creed  being  one  of  sorrow,  that  is 
not  strictly  true  ;  it  is  the  world  that  is  sorrowful,  not 
the  creed  that  redeems  it,  which,  after  all,  has  never 
until  now  had  a  fair  trial.  Christianity  in  its  essence, 
apart  from  its  miraculous  pretensions,  is,  like  the  mind 
of  its  founder,  strictly  simple  and  scientific.  It  may  not 
be  feasible,  we  may  be  altogether  unable  to  believe  it,  its 
history  is  a  long  chapter  of  horrors  and  enormities,  and 
for  some  inscrutable  reason  its  priests  and  paid  pro- 
fessors have  almost  invariably  been  the  enemies  of 
human  progress ;  but,  compared  with  any  other  creed 
that  has  been  offered  in  God's  name  to  men,  it  has  the 
solitary  merit  of  logical  truth  and  common-sense.  If 


ISO  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

we  admit  its  fundamental  proposition,  that  spiritual 
personality  is  permanent,  and  is  at  the  same  time 
directly  conditioned  by  unselfish  love  and  brother- 
hood, all  the  mystery  and  pain,  all  the  struggle  of  the 
ages,  becomes  clear.  Moral  salvation,  being  inde- 
pendent of  dogma  or  of  worldly  happiness,  was  as 
possible  for  the  first  half-savage  human  product  as  it 
is  possible  now  for  the  highest  and  the  meanest  of 
mankind.  Knowledge  is  nothing,  power  is  nothing, 
material  success  is  nothing;  the  insight  of  love  is  every- 
thing, and  looks  right  up  into  the  heaven  of  heavens, 
crying,  "  O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ?  O  death, 
where  is  thy  sting  ?  " 

In  saying  so  much,  perhaps,  concerning  one  or  two 
points  of  Mr.  Frothingham's  teaching,  I  may  seem  to 
be  carping  at  what  I  came  to  praise.  Let  me  repeat, 
then,  that  the  said  teaching  is  in  the  main  as  wise  as  it 
is  beneficent,  as  beautiful  as  it  is  just.  For  every 
flower  that  grows  in  the  gardens  of  the  gods,  Mr. 
Frothingham  has  reverent  admiration  ;  he  is  Pharisaic 
to  no  creed,  but  tolerant  toward  all.  With  his  faith  in 
the  teaching  of  science  I  can  find  no  fault,  except  that 
it  blinds  him  now  and  then  to  the  subtler  issues  of  life 
and  experience ;  it  is,  indeed,  a  kind  of  faith  that 
must  grow  in  the  hearts  of  all  men,  and  ultimately,  I 
believe,  lead  to  the  triumph  of  the  Christian  ideal. 
The  star  of  a  holy  purpose  shines  at  all  times,  more 
or  less  brightly,  through  the  clouds  of  the  writer's 
transcendentalism .  For  with  all  his  scientific  leanings 
he  is  of  the  race  that  produced  Emerson  and  Theodore 
Parker  ;  he  possesses  by  temperament  their  vagueness 
and  haziness  of  logic,  leading  sometimes  to  that  uni- 
versal tolerance  which  makes  religion  blow  neither 
hot  nor  cold,  but  lukewarm.  Mr.  Frothingham  has 
done  noble  work  in  negativing  the  pretensions  of  still 


FREE   THOUGHT  IN  AMERICA.  151 

rampant  dogmatisms  and  special  Providences,  in 
asserting  the  supreme  right  of  private  judgment,  in 
bearing  testimony  from  the  pulpit  that  the  teachings 
of  Science,  instead  of  narrowing,  enlarge  the  heavenly 
horizons,  and  in  following  the  divine  thread  of 
meaning  to  be  found  in  all  creeds  and  all  theologies. 
His  teaching  has  the  one  cardinal  defect,  that  it  lacks 
the  consecrating  touch  of  pathos  that  accompanies 
the  highest  kind  of  spiritual  solicitation,  which  we 
feel  as  certainly  in  the  Buddhist  books  as  in  the 
Jewish  Testament,  in  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles  as 
well  as  in  the  moralities  of  John  Bunyan,  and  in  the 
prophecies  of  Walt  Whitman  (despite  all  the 
Emersonian  leaven)  as  well  as  in  the  child-like  songs 
of  Whittier.  For  this  is  the  fatal  tendency  of 
Transcendentalism — to  soften  the  lines  of  conviction, 
and  to  strain  the  anguish  out  of  sentiment.  There  is 
no  pathos  in  Emerson ;  never  once  does  his  gentle 
hand,  grasping  its  soothsayer's  wand,  touch  the 
fountain  of  tears ;  yet  even  such  a  man  as  Spurgeon 
can  stir  that  fountain,  if  only  with  the  mere  breath  of 
a  phrase.  And  no  creed  without  pathos  will  ever 
justify  the  great  human  hope,  or  conquer  the  great 
human  heart.  So  I  part  from  Mr.  Frothingham  with 
no  lack  of  respect  and  admiration,  but  with  some  little 
sadness,  feeling  that  the  tale  he  has  to  tell  is  one 
already  twice  told,  and  misses  the  charm  of  the  fairy 
stories  of  God,  which  will  continue  to  add  to  human 
happiness  so  long  as  the  heart  of  man  is  as  a  child's 
and  some  glimpses  of  a  heavenly  dream  remain. 


A   NOTE   ON    DANTE    ROSSETTI. 


"  Some  positive,  persisting  fops  we  know, 
Who,  if  once  wrong,  will  needs  be  always  so  ; 
But  I,  with  pleasure,  own  my  errors  past, 
And  make  each  day  a  critic  on  the  last." 

POPE'S  Essay  on  Criticism. 


IN  the  early  spring  of  the  present  year  there 
passed  away  at  Birchington-on-Sea,  in  Kent,  one  of 
the  most  original  painters  and  most  gifted  poets  who 
was  ever  sent  to  lend  light  and  leading  to  a  perverse 
generation.  A  man  unique  in  this  particular — that 
he  passed  through  good  and  evil  report  with  serene 
indifference  to  mercenary  reward  or  social  successes  ; 
and  that,  while  exercising  an  unusual  influence  on  the 
higher  culture  of  his  age,  and  living  in  the  very  midst  of 
a  busy  and  somewhat  pertinacious  artistic  circle,  he  re- 
mained personally  unknown  to  most  of  his  contempo- 
raries, as  well  as  to  the  public  at  large.  He  painted 
pictures,  which  I  can  neither  blame  nor  praise,  for  I 
know  them  too  little,  but  which  those  well  fitted  to 
judge  have  classed  as  masterpieces.  He  wrote  poems, 
which  have  been  both  lavishly  praised  and  harshly 
judged,  and  which  remain,  after  all  is  said  and  done, 
among  the  spiritual  productions  of  the  present  genera- 
tion. Even  fairer  than  his  artistic  or  literary  fame 
was  the  love  and  admiration  he  awakened  in  all  who 
knew  him.  He  not  merely  founded  a  school,  he 
created  a  kind  of  artistic  religion,  which  is  fast  spread- 
ing, through  the  labours  of  loving  disciples.  A  man 


A   NOTE   ON  DANTE  ROSSETTL  153 

remarkable  for  his  intellectual  gifts,  he  was  still  more 
remarkable  for  his  unique  power  of  awakening  artistic 
faith  and  literary  fervour.  Missed  now  by  his  own 
circle,  he  will  ere  long  be  missed  more  by  the  world 
which  least  appreciated  him  while  living;  for,  when 
the  true  aestheticism  has  indicated  itself,  and  the  false 
asstheticism,  which  still  overshadows  it,  has  withered 
like  an  unwholesome  weed,  the  name  of  Rossetti  will 
be  sadly  remembered,  as  that  of  one  of  those  veiled 
spirits  who  sometimes  walk  the  earth  to  make  men  / 
pure,  and  literally  to  "  brighten  the  sunshine." 

When   I   remember  how  truly  great  he  was — in"\ 
that  best  greatness  of  modesty  and  meekness  of  soul  ; 
when   I    think   how   patiently    he    laboured    at    his 
beautiful  art  and  how  little  golden  praise  men  gave 
to  him  ;    when  I  contrast  his   gentle   life  with   the 
strenuous  lives  of  noisier  and  more  prosperous  men, 
it  seems  strange  to  think  that,  at  any  period  of  his 
career,  any  writer  could  be  found  blind  enough  or 
hard  enough  to  criticise  him  adversely.      Yet,  that  I  fa 
cruel  things  were  written  of  him,  and  by  one  who  I 
should  have  looked  longer  and  known  better,  we  all  r 
know.     He  has  been   called  a   "fleshly"  person,    a  >• 
sensuous,   even  a  sensual  poet ;   he  who,  more  than     $V 
perhaps  many  of  his  contemporaries,  was  the  least 
objective,  the  least  earthly,  and  the  most  ideal.     Not 
even  after  his  death  is  the  cry  suffered  to  abate ;  and 
a  recent  writer  in  a  religious  review,*  takes  occasion 
to  repeat  at  second-hand,  for  a  wiser  generation,  all 
the  hasty  expressions  and  uninstructed  abuse  that  I 
published  in  hot  haste  ten  years  ago,  and  have  since, 
as  my  readers  know,  repented.    It  is  so  easy  to  create, 
a  nickname  that  will  stick;    so   difficult  to    write   a 

*  The  British  Quarterly. 


154  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

criticism  that  will  endure  !  Perhaps  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  endeavour,  in  the  short  space  at  my  disposal, 
to  show  the  readers  of  this  book  how  false  a  judg- 
ment it  was,  how  conventional,  and  Pharisaic  a  criti- 
cism, which  chose  to  dub  as  "  fleshly "  the  works  of 
this  most  ethereal  and  dreamy — in  many  respects 
this  least  carnal  and  most  religious — of  modern  poets. 
But  let  me  confess  at  the  outset  that,  to  under- 
stand poems  like  these,  the  reader  must  bring  some- 
thing of  the  sympathy  he  receives.  If  he  approaches 
in  the  wrong  mood,  or  in  an  antipathetic  one,  the 
poems  may  at  first  repel  him.  The  magnetism  is  for 
magnetic  people,  under  what  the  mediums  call  "  test J> 
conditions.  I  myself,  being  then  in  a  non-receptive 
mood,  once  regarded  Rossetti's  work  balefully,  dis- 
liked his  subjects  and  his  workmanship  ;  even  thought 
him  sensuous  in  the  bad  sense,  and  was  capable  of 
"  cutting  him  up"  (how  easy  it  is  to  "cut  up  " — even 
a  rose  or  a  lily !)  when  the  occasion  served.  After- 
wards, reading  him  again  less  coldly,  I  began  to 
understand  the  purity  of  his  meaning  and  the  delicacy 
of  his  art.  That  art  has  been  called  mosaic,  and  so 
it  is ;  but  it  is  a  mosaic  made  of  precious  stones  of 
speech,  always  radiant,  and  sometimes  exquisitely 
chosen,  forming,  indeed,  an  ornate  style  sui  generis, 
in  which  Latinisms  are  employed  with  rare  felicity. 
Some  people  may  prefer  simpler  styles,  though  it 
may  be  said  in  passing,  that  Rossetti  could  be  simple 
enough  when  he  chose,  as  in  his  fine  reproductions  of 
old  ballads ;  but  that  is  neither  here  nor  there  ;  the 
\  fact  being  that  Rossetti's  style  was  his  own,  and 
Vjyonderfully  adapted  to  express  his  sibylline  meaning. 
His  method,  like  that  of  Jacob  Boehmen,  was  sym- 
bolic; and  he  sometimes  used  a  phrase,  as  Jacob 
used  a  flower,  to  express  whole  worlds  of  recondite 


A   NOTE  ON  DANTE  ROSSETTI.  155 

mysticism.  With  such  a  writer,  therefore,  to  com- 
plain that  he  did  not  call  a  spade  a  spade,  or  carol 
songs  about  buttercups  and  daisies,  was  to  mistake 
the  whole  drift  of  his  meaning.  He  was  one  of  those 
who  found,  as  many  an  old  necromancer  would  have 
found,  an  infinity  of  suggestion  in  the  mere  sound  of 
"  Mesopotamia."  So  he  came  to  love  music  for  its 
own  sake,  finding  a  luxury  of  delight  in  using  sweet 
sibilants,  delicate  elisions,  and  musical  alliterations. 
Proceeding  further,  he  constructed  a  phraseology 
quaint,  archaic,  involved,  and  involuted,  yet  only  so 
as  are  flowers,  leaves,  bells,  and  blooms,  obeying  some 
intricate  caprice  of  nature. 

A  primrose  on  the  water's  brim, 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 
But  it  was  something  more ; 

it  was  maiden  modesty  and  virgin  pallor,  a  star  in 
the  earth's  firmament,  a  letter  in  the  golden  Book  of 
Beauty,  a  symbol,  an  abstraction  of  something  stranger 
and  fairer  than  itself.  For  the  man  was  a  magician,  of 
the  tribe  of  Kubla  Khan ;  and  at  his  bidding  there  rose 
a  stately  pleasure  dome,  every  precious  stone  of  which 
had  a  name  and  a  mystery,  and,  when  he  entered  it 
to  weave  his  strange  verse,  he  was  within  his  right  in 
using  the  language  of  incantation,  and  in  conjuring 
with  such  names  as  "  Abracadabra."  Those  who 
assert  that  he  loved  this  Art  "  for  its  own  sake,"  know- 
nothing  of  his  method  ;  he  loved  it  because  it  ex- 
pressed the  almost  inexpressible,  and  supplied  him 
with  an  occult  terminology.  If  he  was  wrong,  all  the 
mystics  have  been  wrong  ;  Boehmen  was  a  blunderer, 
Richter  was  a  proser,  Novalis  was  no  poet.  There  is 
room,  surely,  in  the  world  for  Rossetti  as  well  as 
Burns,  for  the  poetry  of  enchanted  symbolism  as  well 


156  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

I  as  for  the  poetry  of  kicking  up  one's  heels  and  rolling 

[jvvith  milkmaids  in  the  hay. 

The  adverse  critic  has  complained  that  our 
magician  had  no  humour,  was  incapable  of  honest 
laughter  ;  in  other  words,  he  never  grinned  through  a 
horse-collar,  as  even  poor  Heine  could  do;  but  neither 
did  Wordsworth  or  Shelley,  nor  many  another  man 
whom  the  world  calls  great.  He  knew,  in  fact,  that 
life  was  no  laughing  matter.  Yet  grave  humour,  of  a 
celestial  kind,  he  certainly  possessed,  if  we  are  to 
trust  certain  memoranda  which  have  been  handed 
about,  but  never  openly  published.  It  was  no  fault 
of  his  that  God  intended  him  for  a  Wizard ;  it  was  his 
destiny,  and  certainly  our  gain  ;  for,  in  these  days  of 
garish  daylight,  of  popular  science,  it  needed  such  a 
man  to  show  us  that  geometry  is  occult  as  well  as 
simple,  that  the  stars  have  "  influences"  as  well  as  rays 
to  be  dissolved  in  the  spectrum,  and  that  the  flowers 
may  be  put  to  other  uses  besides  the  manufacture  of 
cowslip-wine.  You  think  that  speech  is  current  coin, 
toj)e  passed  freely  from  hand  to  hand  ;  he  knew  that 
it  was  magical,  and,  by  a  simple  arrangement  of 
sounds,  could  be  made  to  figure  forth  flowers,  stars, 
and  astrological  portents.  Words  of  strange  colour 
coiled  like  snakes  about  his  wand,  turned  into  flowers 
and  leaves,  turned  again  into  precious  stones,  and 
rained  as  pearls  and  emeralds  on  the  grass  beneath  his 
feet.  He  wore  neither  homespun  cloth  nor  sober 
black,  but  a  robe  wrought  with  Runic  letters  and 
signs  of  the  Zodiac — a  wizard's  robe,  in  fact.  It  was 
not  the  sort  of  dress  to  please  prosy  people,  or  to  go 
junketing  in;  but  it  suited  his  purpose  and  expressed 
his  extraordinary  function.  The  style  is  the  man  ;  and, 
in  this  case,  no  style  could  possibly  be  better. 

There  are  people  in  the  world  who  imagine  that 


A   NOTE  ON  DANTE  ROSSETTI.  157 

poetry  should  be  easy  as  A  B  C,  and  who  tell  us  that 
it  should  deal  only  with  the  approven  facts  of  life.  In 
this  case,  Shakespeare  was  a  bad  poet,  and  Hamlet's 
soliloquy  a  vile,  roundabout  business — as,  indeed, 
simple  Goldsmith  was  eager  to  show  on  one  occasion. 
It  does  not  seem  to  me,  however,  that  poetry  is  neces- 
sarily either  simple  or  occult ;  it  either  is  or  is  not  poetry, 
ami  may  be  as  far  off  in  its  range  as  Saturn's  ring,  or 
as  near  to  us  as  cakes  and  ale.  It  is  surely  worth 
while  to  strain  tHe  eyes  a  little  in  gazing  at  the 
heavens,  and  to  listen  with  some  attention  if  we 
expect  to  catch  the  music  in  the  sea-shell.  Those 
who  complain  that  certain  great  poets  are  incompre- 
hensible, are  simply  lazy  persons,  who  want  to  be 
tickled  with  a  straw — companions,  indeed,  of  our  old 
friend  Bottom,  who  could  conceive  of  no  use  for 
Titania's  fairies  but  to  scratch  his  ears.  All  deep 
thought  is  difficult,  however  expressed — in  the  crystal- 
line phrase  of  Dante,  or  in  the  jargon  of  Jean  Paul ; 
and  there  is  no  easy  road  to  Parnassus.  The  right 
question,  indeed,  to  ask  in  taking  up  a  poet's  work, 
is  not  whether  it  is  easy,  but  whether  it  is  difficult 
enough — whether  it  awakens  that  thought  which  con- 
cerns the  beauty  and  mystery  of  life,  or  whether  it 
goes  down  like  a  lollipop,  and  leaves  us  none  the 
wiser  or  the  better.  A  more  serious  charge  against 
Rossetti's  writing,  if  sustained,  would  be  that  it  is 
only  of  the  lollipop  or  bonbon  order — a  luscious  thing 
for  very  young  people  ;  and  it  is  curious  that  this 
charge  is  made  by  the  same  critics  who  complain  of 
its  difficulty,  its  artificiality.  The  inconsistency  is 
remarkable.  If  all  Rossetti  had  to  tell  us  was  that 
lollipops  are  sweet,  and  sensual  pleasure  agreeable, 
and  women  kissable,  why  should  he  have  gone  in 
such  a  roundabout  way  about  it?  Why  should  he 


158  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

have  used  the  language  of  the  spheres,  and  the 
machinery  of  all  the  necromancers,  to  express  to  us 
the  height  of  foolishness  and  the  depth  of  apple  pie  ? 
In  simple  fact,  he  does  nothing  of  the  sort.  He  uses 
amatory  forms  and  carnal  images,  just  as  he  uses 
mere  sounds  and  verbalisms,  to  express  ideas  which 
are  purely  and  remotely  spiritual ;  and  he  takes  the 
language  of  personal  love  to  express  his  divine 
yearning,  simply  because  that  language  is  the  most 
exquisite  quintessence  of  human  speech.  I  do  not 
mean  to  imply  that  his  forms  and  images  represent 
mere  abstractions  ;  in  that  case,  he  would  be  a  sort  of 
mathematician,  not  a  poet.  But  flesh  and  blood,  in 
his  eyes,  are  sacramental. 

Is  there  any  honest  man  that  doubts  that  Love, 
even  so-called  "  fleshly  Love,"  is  the  noblest  pleasure 
that  man  is  permitted  to  enjoy ;  or  that  the  sympathy 
of  woman  for  man,  and  of  man  for  woman,  is  in  its 
essence  the  sweetest  sympathy  of  which  the  soul  is 
capable  ?  Only  one  thing  is  higher  and  better  than 
Love's  happiness,  and  that  one  thing  is  Love's  sorrow, 
when  there  comes  out  of  loss  and  suffering  the  sense 
of  compensation,  of  divine  gain.  Well,  Rossetti's 
poetry  expresses  at  once  the  pleasure,  the  sympathy, 
the  happiness  and  the  sorrow,  the  loss  and  the  gain. 
f  It  has  been  called  the  poetry  of  personal  passion  ;  but 
it  is  more  than  this — it  is  passion  transfused  into 
religion,  into  a  religion  which  glorifies  grief  and 
peoples  the  empty  heavens  with  shapes  of  loveliness 
and  love.  Take  the  opening  of  what  is  perhaps  his 
best,  and  best-known  poem  : 

The  Blessed  Damozel  leaned  out 

On  the  gold  bar  of  Heaven  : 
Her  eyes  were  stiller  than  the  depths 

Of  waters  still'd  at  even  ; 
She  had  five  lilies  in  her  hand, 

And  the  stars  in  her  hair  were  seven  ! 


A  NOTE   ON  DANTE  ROSSETTI.  159 

Something  vaguer  might  have  contented  other 
poets,  but  this  poet  has  a  necromancer's  precision, 
can  count  each  star  and  lily  of  the  vision,  with  a  sense 
of  their  individual  signification.  The  result  is,  we  have 
not  merely  a  poetical  image,  but  a  painted  picture ; 
something  dreamlike,  but  with  the  strange  definition 
only  known  in  dreams.  As  he  goes  on,  the  picture 
changes,  but  the  realism  remains — we  see  the  very 
hues,  and  hear  the  very  sound,  of  heaven  ;  and  at  each 
wave  of  the  grave  wizard's  wand,  at  each  measured 
cadence  from  his  lips,  the  azure  seems  bursting  open 
further  and  further,  until  we  see,  in  an  extraordinary 
image, 

Time  like  a  pulse  shake  fierce 
Thro'  all  the  worlds  ! 

If  this  be  not  necromancy,  I  know  none  in  poetry. 
Pathos  there  is  also  in  the  poem,  as  when  the  Blessed 
Damozel  weeps,  and  we  "hear  her  tears,"  a  gentle 
sound  of  rain  on  the  parched  universe.  But  the 
magician  is  too  sure  of  his  power,  too  conscious  of 
the  supernatural  powers  which  are  shaping  the  spell, 
to  break  down  and  moan.  A  poet  of  the  earth, 
earthy,  may  do  that,  and  set  us  weeping  with  him — as 
Burns  does  when  he  hears  the  bird-song  from  his  place 
in  the  ploughed  field. 

For  pity's  sake,  sweet  bird,  nae  mair, 
Or  else  my  heart  is  broken  / 

But  the  spiritual  poet,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  so 
celestial  a  vision,  is  master  of  himself.  He  knows 
that  his  glimpse  is  real,  and  that,  sooner  or  later,  the 
enchantment  will  draw  him  upward — to  the  Blessed 
Damozel's  embrace — as,  indeed,  it  has  already  done, 
since  such  aspirations  are  truly  sent  of  God. 

The  same  mood  of  perfect  vision  and  grave  assu- 
rance inspires  all  the  best  work  of  Rossetti.  He  has 


160  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

no  questions  to  ask,  no  problems  to  trouble  him  ;  he 
1 1  is  sibylline,  not  from  being  puzzle-headed,  but  be- 
ll cause  he  has  looked  behind  the  curtain  of  the  Sibyl. 
He  sees  the  trees  walk,  he  hears  the  flowers  speak, 
with  a  sober  certainty  of  waking  bliss.  When  an 
angel  passes  him,  he  can  feel  the  very  texture  of  his 
robe,  and  tell  the  colour  of  his  eyes.  He  is  as  sure 
of  Heaven  and  all  its  white-robed  angels  as  ordinary 
men  are  of  each  other.  Something  of  this  certainty 
<  he  doubtless  learned  from  Blake,  though  he  lacked 
Blake's  childish  simplicity  and  sweet  garrulousness. 
So  he  "  weaves  his  spell  of  strange  device  "  in  a  way 
bewildering  to  those  who  dislike  being  mesmerised, 
and  who  would  have  sent  Paracelsus  to  prison  for 
fortune-telling. 

The  finest  of  his  finished  works  is  the  "  House  of 
Life,"  which  the  British  Quarterly  Reviewer  calls  a 
"  House  of  111  Fame."  It  is,  to  a  certain  extent, 
monotonous,  and  the  sacrament  of  flesh  and  blood 
has  a  constant  place  in  it ;  but  out  of  this  sacrament 
rises  the  ghostly  vision  of  the  Host,  and  ere  we  have 
ended,  we  hear  the  voices  of  all  the  angels  praising 
the  Lord  of  Heavenly  Love.  And  of  this  strange 
texture,  of  this  starry  woof,  is  the  so-called  "  fleshly" 
poetry.  Is  it  a  reproach  to  this  poet  that  the  divinest 
thing  he  has  seen  and  known,  humanly  speaking,  is 
the  face  and  form  of  a  living  woman  ;  that  out  of  her 
eyes,  and  from  her  lips,  he  has  learned  to  understand 
the  processions  of  the  stars  and  the  spheric  music  of 
the  world  which,  to  so  many,  is  unknown  ?  The  stairs 
of  the  earthly  Love  reach  to  the  heavens ;  he  ascends 
them  step  by  step,  that  is  all,  hand  in  hand  with  his 
sweet  guide — who  is  a  bright,  earthly  maiden  at  the 
beginning,  then  a  bride,  then  a  shining  creature, 
winged  and  marvellously  transfigured ;  the  rest  in. 


A   NOTE  ON  DANTE  ROSSETTL  161 

order ;  last,  an  amethyst !  You  can  transfigure"? 
Love,  but  you  can  never  transfigure  Lust ;  this  last 
never  made  an  angel,  or  inspired  a  true  poem,  yet.  —I 
And  so,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  the  friendly 
criticism  remains  the  best  and  wisest.  Those  who 
have  read  Mr.  Swinburne's  eulogy  of  his  master, 
and  thought  it,  perhaps,  a  little  strained,  may  admit, 
at  least,  that  it  was  strained,  like  all  eulogy  of  love, 
in  the  right  direction.  My  own  abuse  was  and  is, 
like  all  hasty  contemporary  abuse,  nothing.  Mr.  Swin- 
burne's honest  praise  was,  and  is,  like  all  honest 
praise,  something.  The  poet  of  the  "  House  of  Life  " 
is  beyond  both  ;  but  his  fame  will  remain,  when  all 
detraction  is  forgotten,  as  a  golden  symbol,  are 
pcrcnnius,  of  much  that  was  best  and  brightest  in  the 
culture  of  our  time.* 


*  I  have  given  the  above  as  my  final  and  revised  opinion  on 
a  writer  to  whom  I  once  stood  in  strong  antipathy.  The  only 
suspicious  thing  I  know  about  some  of  Rossetti's  poetry  is  the 
facility  with  which  it  can  be  imitated.  During  a  recent  com- 
petition for  a  prize  given  by  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  a  number  of 
sonnets  by  various  hands  was  contributed,  reproducing  in  a 
striking  manner  the  manner,  or  trick,  of  Rossetti's  verbal  style 
and  imagery.  Generally  speaking,  I  believe,  the  merit  of  a 
style  is  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty  of  actual  reproduction. 
Great  thought  in  great  language  cannot  well  be  imitated. 
Mannerisms  of  every  kind  can.  The  best  of  Rossetti's  work 
is  beyond  the  re-rendering  of  the  poetaster. — R.  B. 


THOMAS    LOVE    PEACOCK. 

A   PERSONAL  REMINISCENCE. 


IN  the  neighbourhood  of  the  picturesque  village 
of  Chertsey,  close  to  which  the  Thames  winds  broad 
and  clear  between  deep  green  meadow-flats  and  quiet 
woods,  still  stand  the  ruins  of  Newark  Abbey.  Situated 
in  a  lonely  field,  eight  miles  from  the  village,  and  near 
to  the  Weybridge  canal,  they  lie  comparatively  un- 
known and  little  visited ;  a  mill  murmurs  close  at 
hand,  turned  by  a  small  fall ;  and  all  around  stretch 
the  level  fields  and  meadows  of  green  Surrey.  Here, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  when  these 
ruins  stood  as  now,  a  young  man  and  maiden,  be- 
trothed to  each  other,  were  accustomed  to  meet  and  ex- 
change their  quiet  vows;  and  here,  half  a  century  after- 
wards, a  gray-haired  old  man  of  seventy,  beautiful  in 
his  age  as  the  old  Goethe,  would  wander  musing 
summer  day  after  summer  day.  The  lovers  had  been 
parted  ;  the  maiden  had  married  and  died  young, 
while  the  man  had  also  married  and  become  the  father 
of  a  household  ;  but  that  first  dream  had  never  been 
forgotten  by  one  at  least  of  the  pair,  and  that  surviving 
one  was  Thomas  Love  Peacock,  known  to  general 
English  readers  as  the  author  of  "  Headlong  Hall." 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  163 

With  a  constancy  and  a  tenderness  which  many  more 
famous  men  would  have  done  well  to  emulate,  he 
clung  to  the  scene  of  his  first  and  perhaps  his  only 
love  :  a  love  innocent,  like  all  true  love ;  and  far  pre- 
ferable, to  quote  his  own  words,  to— 

"  The  waveless  calm,  the  slumber  of  the  dead, 

which  weighs  on  the  minds  of  those  who  have  never 
loved,  or  never  earnestly/'  Looking  on  the  face  of 
Peacock  in  his  old  age,  and  knowing  his  secret,  well 
might  one  remember  in  emotion  the  beautiful  words 
of  Scribe  :  "  II  faut  avoir  aime  une  fois  en  sa  vie,  non 
pour  le  moment  ou  Ton  aime,  car  on  n'eprouve  alors 
que  des  tourmens,  des  regrets,  de  la  jalousie  ;  mais  peu 
a  peu  ces  tourmens-la  deviennent  des  souvenirs,  qui 
charment  notre  arriere-saison.  Et  quand  vous  verrez 
la  vieillesse  douce,  facile,  et  tolerante,  vous  puissez 
dire  comme  Fontenelle — L? amour  a  passe  par-la  !  " 

Yes,  Love  had  passed  that  way,  and  set  on  the  old 
man  his  gracious  seal,  which  no  other  deity  can 
counterfeit  ;  so  that,  looking  upon  the  old  man's  face, 
one  read  of  gentleness,  high-mindedness,  toleration, 
and  perfect  chivalry.  These  may  seem  odd  words  to 
apply  to  one  whom  the  world  knew  rather  as  a  retro- 
grade philosopher  and  satirical  pessimist  than  a  lover 
of  human  nature,  as  a  scholar  rather  than  a  poet,  as  a 
country  gentleman  of  the  old  school  rather  than  a 
humanitarian  of  the  new  ;  but  they  can  be  justified  ; 
and  it  may  be  questioned,  moreover,  whether  he  had 
not  learned  of  the  eighteenth  century  certain 
modest  virtues  which  the  nineteenth  century  has 
incontinently  forgotten.  To  children  he  was 
gentleness  itself,  and  all  children  loved  him  ;  and 
there  could  be  no  prettier  sight  in  the  world  than 
the  picture  of  him,  as  I  saw  him  first,  and  as  in 

M    2 


1 64  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

my  mind's  eye  I  see  him  now,  sitting  one  summer 
day,  seated  on  his  garden  lawn  by  the  river,  while  a 
little  maiden  of  sixteen  rested  on  his  knees  the  great 
quarto  Orlando  Innamorato  o>i  Bojardo,  and,  following 
with  her  finger  the  sun-lit  lines,  read  soft  and  low, 
corrected  ever  and  anon  by  his  kind  voice,  the  delicate 
Italian  he  loved  so  well.  Who  that  looked  at  him, 
then,  could  fail  to  perceive,  to  quote  Lord  Houghton's 
words,  "that  he  had  gone  through  the  world  with 
happiness  and  honour"?  But  the  secret  of  his 
beautiful  benignity  lay  deeper.  "  L'amour  a  passe 
par-la  ! " 

While  a  student  in  Scotland,  I  had  known  him  as 
the  friend  of  Shelley,  and  had  read  his  delightful 
works  with  pleasure  and  profit ;  until  at  last  I  was 
prompted  to  write  to  him,  expecting  (I  remember)  to 
receive  but  a  cold  response  from  one  who,  to  judge 
him  by  his  works,  was  too  much  of  a  Timon  to  care 
for  boy's  homage.  I  was  agreeably  disappointed. 
The  answer  came,  not  savage  like  a  wrap  on  the 
knuckles,  but  cordial  as  a  hand-shake.  Afterwards, 
when  I  was  weary  "climbing  up  the  breaking  wave" 
of  London,  I  thought  of  my  old  friend,  and  determined 
to  seek  him  out.  Mainly  with  the  wish  to  be  near 
him,  I  retreated  to  quiet  Chertsey  ;  and  thence  past 
Chertsey  Bridge,  through  miles  of  green  fields  basking 
in  the  summer  sun,  and  through  delightful  lanes  to 
Lower  Halliford,  I  went  on  pilgrimage,  youth  in  my 
limbs,  reverence  in  my  heart,  a  pipe  in  my  mouth,  and 
the  tiny  Pickering  edition  of  Catullus  (a  veritable 
"  lepidum  libellum,"  but,  alas,  far  from  "  novum  !  ")  in 
my  waistcoat  pocket.  And  there,  at  Lower  Halliford, 
I  found  him  as  I  had  described  him,  seated  on  his 
garden  lawn  in  the  sun,  with  the  door  of  his  library 
open  behind  him,  showing  such  delicious  vistas  of 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  165 

shady  shelves  as  would  have  gladdened  his  own 
Dr.  Opimian,  and  the  little  maiden  reading  from  the 
book  upon  his  knee.  Gray-haired  and  smiling  sat  the 
man  of  many  memories,  guiding  the  utterances  of  one 
who  was  herself  a  pretty  two-fold  link  between  the 
present  and  the  past,  being  the  granddaughter  (on  the 
paternal  side)  of  Leigh  Hunt,  and  also  the  grand- 
daughter (on  the  maternal  side)  of  the  Williams  who 
was  drowned  with  Shelley.  Could  a  youthful 
student's  eyes  see  any  sight  fairer  ? 

"And  did  you  once  see  Shelley  plain, 
And  did  he  stop  and  speak  to  you  ?  .  .  . 
How  strange  it  seems,  and  new  ! "  * 

And  this  old  man  had  spoken  with  Shelley,  not  once, 
but  a  thousand  times  ;  and  had  known  well  both 
Harriett  Westbrook  and  Mary  Godwin ;  and  had 
cracked  jokes  with  Hobhouse,  and  chaffed  Proctor's 
latinity ;  and  had  seen,  and  actually  criticised, 
Malibran  ;  and  had  bought  "  the  vasty  version  of  a 
new  system  to  perplex  the  sages/'f  when  it  first  came 
out,  in  a  bright,  new,  uncut  quarto ;  and  had  dined 
with  Jeremy  Bentham  ;  and  had  smiled  at  Disraeli, 
when,  resplendently  attired,  he  stood  chatting  in 
Hookham's  with  the  Countess  of  Blessington ;  and 
had  been  face  to  face  with  that  bland  Rhadamanthus, 
Chief  Justice  Eldon  ;  and  was,  in  short,  such  a  living 
chronicle  of  things  past  and  men  dead  as  filled  one's 
soul  with  delight  and  ever-varying  wonder.  "  How 
strange  it  seemed,  and  new  !  " 

The  portrait  prefixed  to  the  collected  edition  of 
his  works  J  conveys  a  very  good  idea  of  the  man  as  I 


*  Robert  Browning. 

t  Byron's  description  of  Wordsworth's  "  Excursion." 

I  Peacock's  Works,  3  vols.     (Bentley,  1875.) 


166  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

first  saw  him — a  stately  old  gentleman  with  hair  as 
white  as  snow,  a  keen,  merry  eye,  and  a  characteristic 
chin.  His  dress  was  plain  black,  with  white  neck- 
cloth, and  low  shoes,  and  on  his  head  he  wore  a 
plaited  straw  hat.  One  glance  at  him  was  enough  to 
reveal  his  delightful  character,  that  of  his  own  Dr. 
Opimian.  "His  tastes,  in  fact,  were  four:  a  good 
library,  a  good  dinner,  a  pleasant  garden,  and  rural 
walks."  This  was  the  man  who,  as  a  beautiful  boy, 
had  been  caught  up  and  kissed  by  Queen  Caroline ; 
who,  when  he  grew  up  to  manhood,  had  been  christened 
"  Greeky  Peeky,"  on  account  of  his  acquirement  in 
Greek  ;  and  who  had  been  thus  described,  in  a  pas- 
sage I  have  not  seen  quoted  before,  by  Shelley,  in  the 
"  Letter  to  Maria  Gisborne  "  : 

You  will  see  P — ,  with  his  mountain  Fair* 
Turned  into  a  Flamingo     .     .     . 
When  a  man  marries,  dies,  or  turns  Hindoo, 
His  best  friends  hear  no  more  of  him  ;  but  you 
Will  see  him  and  will  like  him,  too,  I  hope, 
And  that  snow-white  Snowdonian  antelope, 
Marched  with  the  cameo-leopard.     His  fine  wit 
Makes  such  a  wound,  the  knife  is  lost  in  it! 

Age  had  mellowed  and  subdued  the  "  cameo-leopard,'* 
but  the  "  fine  wit,"  as  I  very  speedily  discovered,  was 
as  keen  as  ever.  His  life  had  been  passed  in  com- 
parative peace  and  retirement.  He  spoke  French 
with  the  good  old-fashioned  English  accent,  and  he 
had  never  been  to  Paris  or  up  the  Rhine  ;  Italy  he 
knew  not,  nor  cared  to  know ;  and  much  as  he  loved 
the  sea,  he  had  sailed  it  little.  His  four  tastes  had 
kept  him  well  anchored  all  his  life.  In  his  youth  he 
had  had  a  fifth,  the  Italian  Opera,  but  the  long 
modern  performances,  and  the  decadence  of  the 

*  Peacock's  wife. 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  167 

ballet,  had  alienated  him.  He  had  his  "good  library," 
and  it  was  a  good  one — full  of  books  it  was  a  luxury 
to  handle,  editions  to  make  a  scholar's  mouth  water, 
bound  completely  in  the  old  style  in  suits  as  tough  as 
George  Fox's  suit  of  leather.  The  "  good  dinner  " 
came  daily.  "  He  liked  to  dine  well,  and  withal  to 
dine  quickly,  and  to  have  quiet  friends  at  his  table, 
with  whom  he  could  discuss  questions  which  might 
afford  ample  room  for  pleasant  conversation,  and 
none  for  acrimonious  dispute."*  In  the  "pleasant 
garden  "  he  was  sitting  with  the  clear  winding  Thames 
below  him  and  his  rowing-boat  swinging  at  the  garden 
steps.  And  the  "  rural  walks  "  lay  all  around  him,  on 
the  quiet  river  side,  through  the  green  woods  of  Esher, 
down  the  scented  lanes  to  Chertsey,  by  winding  turns 
to  Walton  and  Weybridge — scenes  familiar  to  him 
since  boyhood  and  hallowed  with  the  footprints  of 
dead  relatives  and  departed  friends.  For  the  old 
man  was,  so  to  speak,  alone  in  the  world — his  wife 
and  best-loved  daughters  lay  asleep  in  Shepperton 
churchyard,  his  son  was  somewhere  abroad,  and  the 
cries  of  the  children  around  him  were  not  those  of  his 
own  family.  His  gifted  daughter  Rosa,  who  died  in 
her  prime,  was  gone  before,  but  another  daughter,  not 
of  the  flesh,  had  risen  in  her  place.  Many  years 
before,  when  she  was  grieving  sorely  for  the  loss  of 
a  little  child,  Margaret,  his  wife  had  noticed,  on  Halli- 
ford  Green,  a  little  girl  in  its  mother's  arms,  and  see- 
ing in  it  a  strange  likeness  to  her  own  dead  child,  had 
coaxed  it  into  her  own  house,  and  dressed  it  in  the 
dead  babe's  clothes.  Peacock,  returning  from  the 
India  House,  looked  in  through  the  dining-room  win- 
dow, and  seeing  the  child  within  was  almost  stunned 

*"Gryll  Grange." 


i6S  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

by  its  resemblance  to  Margaret.  This  little  girl,  Mary 
Rosewell,  had  been  adopted  by  the  Peacocks  ;  and 
now,  when  all  the  rest  were  dead,  she  remained — a 
bright,  loving  foster-daughter,  whose  baptismal  name 
of  "  Mary  "  had  long  ago  been  sweetened  into  "May." 
I  cannot  describe  her  better  than  in  Peacock's  own 
words  when  describing  Miss  Gryll :  "  The  atmosphere 
of  quiet  enjoyment  in  which  she  had  grown  up  seemed 
to  have  steeped  her  feelings  in  its  own  tranquillity  ; 
and  still  more,  the  affection  which  she  felt  for  her 
foster-father,  and  the  conviction  that  her  departure 
from  his  house  would  be  the  severest  blow  that  fate 
could  inflict  on  him,  led  her  to  postpone  what  she 
knew  must  be  an  evil  day  for  him,  and  might  per- 
adventure  not  be  a  good  one  to  her."  She  has  never 
married,  but  she  has  fulfilled  her  woman's  mission 
perfectly,  and  the  final  years  of  Peacock  owed  much 
of  their  tranquil  sunshine  to  her  tender  and  pathetic 
care. 

Knowing  Peacock  only  from  his  books,  I  was  not 
prepared  to  find  in  him  that  delightful  bonhomie  which 
was  in  reality  his  most  personal  characteristic,  in  old 
age  at  least ;  and  when  we  became  acquainted,  and 
read  and  talked  together,  I  was  as  much  astonished 
at  the  sweetness  of  his  disposition  as  amused  and 
captivated  by  his  quaint  erudition.  In  that  green 
garden,  in  the  lanes  of  Halliford,  on  the  bright  river, 
in  walks  and  talks  such  as  "brightened  the  sunshine," 
I  learned  to  know  him,  and  although  he  was  so  much 
my  senior  he  took  pleasure  (I  am  glad  to  say)  in  my 
society,  partly  because  I  never  worried  him  with 
"  acrimonious  dispute,"  which  he  hated  above  all 
things. 

There  was  for  the  moment  one  dark  cloud  of  mis- 
understanding between  us — a  cloud  of  smoke  ;  for, 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  169 

like  Hans  Andersen's  parson,*  I  "  smoked  a  good  deal 
of  tobacco,  and  bad  tobacco,"  and  to  Peacock  tobacco 
was  poison.  He  forgave  me,  however,  on  one  con- 
dition, that  I  never  smoked  within  five  hundred  yards 
of  his  house — an  arrangement  which,  I  am  ashamed 
to  say,  I  violated,  for  well  I  remember  one  night 
stealthily  opening  the  bedroom  window  in  the  house 
at  Halliford,  and  "  blowing  a  cloud "  out  into  the 
summer  night.  I  am  not  sure  that  much  of  his  hate 
of  tobacco  did  not  arise  from  his  morbid  dread  of  fire. 
He  would  never  have  any  lucifer  matches  in  his  house, 
save  one  or  two  which  were  jealously  kept  in  a  tin 
box  in  the  kitchen.  Morning  after  morning  he  arose 
with  the  sun,  lit  his  own  fire  in  the  library,  and  read 
till  breakfast,  laying  in  material  for  talk  which  flowed 
like  Hippocrene — as  crystal,  and  as  learned !  His 
chief,  almost  his  only,  correspondent  was  Lord 
Broughton,  who  had  been  his  friend  through  life. 
The  two  old  gentlemen  interchanged  letters  and 
verses,  and  capped  quotations,  and  doubtless  felt  like 
two  antediluvian  mammoths  left  stranded,  and  yet 
living  after  the  Deluge — that  Deluge  being  typified 
to  them  by  the  submersion  of  Whig  and  Tory  in  one 
wild  wave  of  Progress,  and  the  long  career  of  Lord 
Brougham  as  a  sort  of  political  Noah.  The  old  land- 
marks of  society  were  obliterated.  Lord  Byron  was 
a  dim  memory,  and  the  stage-coach  was  a  dream. 
The  poetry  of  Nature  had  triumphed,  and  the  poetry 
of  Art  had  died.  Germany  had  a  literature,  and  it 
was  part  of  polite  education  to  know  German.  Beards 
were  worn.  Rotten  boroughs  were  no  more.  The 
Times,  like  a  colossal  Podsnap,  dominated  journalism, 
but  the  Daily  Tdegrapk  was  stirring  the  souls  of 

*  At  I'ccre  eller  ikke  at  : 


i;o  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

tradesmen  to  the  sublime  knowledge  of  Lempriere's 
Dictionary  and  Bohn's  "  Index  of  Quotations."  Special 
correspondents  were  invented,  competitive  examina- 
tion was  consecrating  mediocrity,  and  a  considerable 
number  of  Englishmen  drank  bad  champagne.  What 
was  left  for  an  old  scholar,  but,  like  the  Hudibrastic 
Mirror  of  Knighthood, 

To  cheer  himself  with  ends  of  verse, 
And  saying  of  philosophers ! 

For  the  rest,  the  world  was  in  a  bad  way ;  best  keep 
apart,  and  let  it  wag.  ^vgov  TOV  olvov,  A«pi !  Quaff  a 
cool  cup  in  the  green  shade,  and-  drink  confusion  to 
Lord  Michin  Mallecho  and  the  last  Reform  Bill ! 

It  must  be  conceded  at  once  that  Peacock  was  no 
friend  to  modern  progress — the  cant  of  it,  hoarsely 
roared  from  the  throats  of  journalistic  Jews  and 
political  Merry  Andrews,  had  sickened  him ;  and  he 
was  not  for  one  moment  prepared  to  admit  that  the 
world  was  one  whit  wiser  and  happier  than  before  the 
advent  of  the  steam-engine.  The  pessimism  which 
appears  everywhere  in  his  books  was  the  daily  theme 
of  his  talk ;  but  to  understand  it  rightly  we  must 
remember  it  was  purely  satiric — that,  in  truth, 
Peacock  abused  human  nature  because  he  loved  it. 
Genial  at  heart  as  Thackeray,  he  delighted  to  con- 
demn man  aricTsoclely'in  the  abstract.  Hence  much 
of  his  writing  must  be  read  between  the  lines.  In 
the  clever  little  sketch  of  Peacock,  prefixed  to  the 
new  edition  of  the  works,  Lord  Houghton  errs  to 
some  extent  in  trying  to  construct  Peacock  out  of 
his  books.*  The  "unreasoning  animosity"  Lord 

*  "  In  the  same  spirit  he  clung  to  the  old  religious  ideas  that 
haunted  all  early  Roman  history,  and  indeed  went  far  into  the 
Empire,  and  thus  he  liked  to  read  Livy,  and  did  not  like  to  read 
Niebuhr." — LORD  HOUGHTON'S  PREFACE.  The  words  in  italics 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  171 

Houghton  speaks  of  was  purely  ironic.  For  example, 
so  far  from  having  "  an  indiscriminate  repugnance  to 
Scotland  and  to  everything  Scotch,"  he  was  very 
fond  of  Scotchmen,  having  many  correspondents 
among  them  ;  but  he  could  not  spare  them  for  all 
that,  any  more  than  Thackeray  could  spare  the  Irish, 
whom  he  loved  with  all  his  heart.  When,  in  "  Gryll 
Grange,"  he  makes  Dr.  Opimian  say  of  the  Americans : 
"  I  have  no  wish  to  expedite  communication  with 
them.  If  we  could  apply  the  power  of  electric  repul- 
sion to  preserve  us  from  ever  hearing  any  more  of 
them,  I  should  think  we  had  for  once  derived  a  benefit 
from  science ! " — he  is  merely,  in  a  mood  of  what 
Lord  Houghton  felicitously  called  "  intellectual 
gaiety/'  in  an  after-dinner  mood,  expressing  a  comic 
prejudice  with  no  deep  root  in  reason.  The  ani- 
mosity is  Aristophanic.  No  one  reverenced  Socrates 
more  than  his  unmerciful  "chaffer,"  and  no  man 
knew  the  benefit  of  science  better  than  Peacock.  He 
tried  to  shut  out  humanity,  but  he  felt  it  very  intensely. 
He  could  fain  have  resembled  the  gods  of  Epicurus — 
thinking,  feeling  nothing,  as  Cicero  expresses  it,  but 
"  Mihi  pulchre  est,"  and  "  Ego  beatus  sum  " — but  in 
reality,  he  felt  for  human  suffering  very  acutely.  He 
would  fain  have  had  the  world  one  vast  Maypole, 
with  all  humanity  dancing  round  it,  or  one  mighty 
Christmas-tree,  with  all  humanity  waiting  to  get  a 
prize  from  it.  Every  year,  on  May  Day,  he  crowned 
a  little  May  Queen — generally  one  of  his  grand- 
children— as  Queen  of  the  May,  and  all  the  little 
children  of  the  village  flocked  in  to  her  with  garlands, 

are  put  by  Peacock  into  the  mouth  of  a  young  lady  in  "  Gryll 
Grange,"  and  by  no  means  express  his  own  sentiments  ;  indeed, 
Niebuhr  was  regarded  by  him  with  the  highest  admiration,  as 
having  almost  unique  intuition. 


172  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

to  be  rewarded,  as  the  case  might  be,  with  a  bright 
new  penny  or  a  silver  coin.  He  loved  the  old  times 
for  their  old  customs,  and  he  loved  the  old  customs 
because  they  made  men  gentle  and  children  glad. 
"  He  had  no  fancy,"  he  said,  "  for  living  in  an  express 
train  ;  he  liked  to  go  quietly  through  life,  and  to  see 
all  that  lay  in  his  way."  His  life,  indeed,  might  be 
described  as  one  long  rural  walk,  in  company  with 
Dr.  Opimian,  occasionally  diversified  by  a  visit  to 
London,  and  a  night  at  the  Italian  Opera.  He 
belonged,  as  Lord  Houghton  says,  "  to  the  eighteenth 
century,"  and  I  may  add  that  he  had  every  one  of  its 
virtues  without  one  of  its  vices. 

His  literary  tastes  were  very  interesting;  although 
they,  too,  belonged  to  the  eighteenth  century.  His 
favourite  classical  authors  were  Aristophanes  and 
Cicero.  His  knowledge  of  the  latter  was  extra- 
ordinary ;  there  was  scarcely  a  passage  of  any  force 
which  he  had  not  by  heart.  As  to  Aristophanes,  he 
simply  revelled  in  that  quaint  satire  so  akin  to  the 
keen  writings  of  his  own  modern  Muse.  At  a  time 
when  he  was  reading  "Pickwick,"  and  delighting  in  its 
extravagances,  he  cried  characteristically,  with  a 
delicious  twinkle  of  his  eye,  at  dinner,  lt  Dickens  is 
very  comic,  but — not  so  comic  as  Aristophanes  !  " 
His  mind  was  not  so  much  attracted  by  the  Greek 
tragedians,  though  of  course  he  knew  them  well,  as 
by  the  comic  writers  and  the  satirists  ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  I  fancy  he  preferred  Euripides  to  Sophocles, 
for  the  very  reasons  which  make  critics  like  him  less. 
His  sympathies,  indeed,  were  less  with  the  grand,  the 
terrible,  and  the  sublimely  pathetic,  than  with  the 
brilliant,  the  exquisite,  and  the  delicately  artistic. 
Comedy  fascinated  him  more  than  Tragedy  awed  him. 
Although  he  was  a  profound  student  of  the  mystical 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  173 

hymns  of  Orpheus,  he  read  them  more  as  a  scholar 
than  as  a  mystic.  It  must  be  admitted,  moreover, 
that  his  mind  was  in  itself  a  terrible  "  thesaurus 
eroticus,"  and  there  was  to  be  found  in  it  many  a 
Petronian  quibble  and  Catullian  double  entendre  not 
to  be  discovered  in  Rambach.  To  the  last  he  loved 
Petronius — a  writer  who  has  never  yet  received 
justice  for  his  marvellous  picture-painting  and  deli- 
cate graces  of  diction,  and  who  can  be  vindicated  to 
the  moralist  far  more  easily  than  Rabelais.  Rabelais 
he  loved  too,  of  course  ;  who  does  not  ?  Like  Swift, 
he  preferred  Plautus  to  Terence  : 

Despite  what  schoolmasters  have  taught  us, 
I  have  a  great  respect  for  Plautus, 
And  think  our  boys  may  gather  there  hence 
More  wit  and  wisdom  than  from  Terence ! 

From  these  tastes  of  his  in  the  classical  direction,  the 
reader  may  readily  guess  what  authors  and  what 
books  he  selected  from  more  modern  fields.  It  will 
readily  be  understood  that  he  was  partial  to  Moliere, 
to  Voltaire's  satirical  works,  and  to  the  dramatists  of 
the  Restoration  ;  that  he  admired  "  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley "  and  the  Spectator,  and  had  by  heart 
"  Clever  Tom  Clinch  "  and  the  other  sardonic  verses 
of  Dean  Swift ;  and  that  he  did  not  care  much  for  the 
poetic  transcendentalism  of  Coleridge.  He  esteemed 
the  poetry  of  Milton,  but  far  preferred  Milton's  prose. 
At  the  time  I  knew  him,  he  could  repeat  by  heart 
nearly  the  whole  of  Redi's  "  Bacchus  in  Tuscany  " — 
a  bibulous  masterpiece  which  had  been  admirably 
translated  by  Leigh  Hunt.  Of  modern  non-poetical 
works,  I  should  say  his  three  favourites  were  Mon- 
boddo's  "  Ancient  Metaphysics,"  DrummontTs  "  Aca- 
demical Questions,"  and  Home  Tooke's  "  Diversions 
of  Purley  "  ;  to  which  may  be  added,  with  a  reserva- 


174  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

tion,  Harris's  "  Hermes."  He  was  always  very  fond 
of  philosophic  philology,  and  one  of  the  last  works  of 
his  life  was  to  issue  to  his  private  friends  a  new  inter- 
pretation of  the  Aelia  Lcelia  Crispis. 

But  the  above  brief  catalogue  of  his  favourites 
affords  no  glimpse  of  his  true  attainment.  In  reality 
he  had  not  read  so  many  books  as  many  less 
masterly  men ;  but  his  peculiarity  was  that  he 
had  so  read  and  re-read  his  favourite  ones  that 
he  had  completely  attained  the  interior  of  them. 
Thoreau  used  to  say  that  the  Bible  and  Hafiz  were 
books  enough  for  any  one  man's  lifetime ;  and  cer- 
tainly, a  lifetime  might  be  spent  on  the  study  of  the 
Bible  alone.  Peacock  had  some  dozen  authors 
virtually  by  heart, — and  thus,  the  polyglott  of  his 
delightful  talk  was  really  surprising.  He  never  forgave 
a  false  quantity;  Browning's  Avatar,  in  "Waring," 
would  have  driven  him  into  a  fever,  and,  in  speaking 
of  America,  he  never  forgot  the  fact  that  its  most 
popular  poet,  at  that  time,  had  committed  the  false 
Latin  of  "  Excelsior."*  His  tastes  in  poetry  may  be 
presumed  ;  but  I  ought  to  mention  to  his  honour  that 
he  was  one  of  the  few  early  lovers  of  Wordsworth, 
despite  his  personal  dislike  to  the  Lake  School.  He 
was  never,  till  the  day  of  his  death,  quite  en  rapport 
with  Shelley's  moonshine-genius;  he  far  preferred 
such  a  solid,  flesh  and  blood  poet  as  Burns,  and  of 
Burns'  poems  his  favourite  was  "  Tarn  o'  Shanter  ; " 
and  he  had  little  or  no  appreciation  for  John  Keats 
Indeed,  he  never  passed  the  portico  of  the  green  little 


translation 

the 

is  rendered  by  "  the  educated  in  the  waves,"  etc.  ?    There  are 

several  errors  in  the  new  edition,  not  to  speak  of  the  many 

unaccentuated  Greek  quotations. 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  175 

Temple  erected  by  Keats  to  Diana,  remembering  with 
indignation  the  barbarous  fancies  consecrated  therein  ; 
for  he  could  prove  by  a  hundred  quotations  that  the 
sleep  of  Endymion  was  eternal,  whereas  in  the 
modern  poem  the  Latmian  shepherd  is  for  ever 
capering  up  and  down  the  earth  and  ocean  like  the 
German  chaser  of  shadows.*  The  ancient  conception, 
as  briefly  incorporated  by  Cicero  in  the  passage  where 
Diana  is  described  as  watching  for  ever  the  sleep  of 
"her  beloved  Endymion,"  is  certainly  very  lovely. 
And  here  I  may  remark  incidentally  that  the  influence 
of  Peacock  on  the  lurid  genius  of  Shelley,  though 
doubtless  chilling  on  occasion,  was  certainly  beneficial 
and  in  the  interest  of  Art.  He  checked  a  thousand 
extravagances,  and  helped  to  form  Shelley's  later  and 
more  massive  style  as  exemplified  in  such  pieces  as 
"Alastor,  or  the  Spirit  of  Solitude/'  Peacock 
sugggested  the  title  for  this  poem,  and  was  amused  to 
the  day  of  his  death  by  the  fact  that  the  public,  and 
even  the  critics,  persisted  in  assuming  Alastor  to  be 
the  name  of  the  hero  of  the  poem,  whereas  the  Greek 
word  AXao-rwp  signifies  an  evil  genius,  and  the  evil 
genius  depicted  in  the  poem  is  the  Spirit  of  Solitude. 

Nothing  can  be  more  gentle,  more  guarded,  than 
Peacock's  printed  account  of  Shelley.     His  private 

*  For  similar  reasons,  he  was  perpetually  wroth  with  Byron. 
He  gives  one  frightful  instance  of  incongruity  in  the  notes  to 
"  Nightmare  Abbey." — "  In  Manfred,  the  great  Alastor,  or 
Kn*o?  Am/zap,  of  Greece  is  hailed  king  of  the  world  by  the 
Nemesis  of  Greece,  in  concert  with  three  of  the  Scandin 
Valkyrioc,  under  the  name  of  the  Destinies  ;  the  astro), 
spirits  of  the  alchemysts  of  the  middle  ages  ;  an  elemental 
witch,  transplanted  from  Denmark  to  the  Alps  ;  and  a  chorus 
of  Dr.  Faustus's  devils,  who  came  in  at  the  last  act  for  a  sou). 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  where  this  heterogeneous  mythological 
company  could  have  met  originally,  except  at  a  table  d'hc>li\  like 
the  six  kings  in  "  Candide."— "  Nightmare  Abbey,"  p.  332,  vol.  i. 
of  collected  edition. 


176  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

conversation  on  the  subject  was,  of  course,  very 
different.  Two  subjects  he  did  not  refer  to  in  his 
articles  may  safely  be  mentioned  now — Shelley's 
violent  fits  of  passion,  and  the  difficulty  Peacock 
found  in  keeping  on  friendly  terms  with  Mary 
Godwin.  Many  were  the  anecdotes  he  told  with  a 
twinkling  eye,  of  Shelley's  comic  outbursts.  One  I 
particularly  remember.  When  the  two  friends  were 
rowing  one  day  on  the  Thames,  as  it  was  their 
constant  custom  to  do,  they  came  into  collision  with  a 
flat-bottomed  boat  moored  in  the  centre  of  the 
stream,  in  which  an  old  tradesman  and  his  wife  were 
contentedly  seated,  bottom-fishing.  Remonstrances 
and  strong  expressions  from  the  "  lady  "  ensued  ;  and, 
as  the  friends  pulled  away  from  the  scene  of  the  en- 
counter, Shelley  shrieked  out,  in  his  peculiarly 
unmusical  voice,  "  There's  an  old  woman  angling  for 
unfortunate  fishes,  as  the  Devil  will  angle  for  her  soul 
in  H—  -  !  "  As  for  Mary  Godwin,  I  fancy  Peacock 
never  really  liked  her ;  and  this  fact,  of  course,  must 
be  weighed  in  estimating  his  opinions  relative  to  her 
and  her  predecessors.  On  one  occasion,  at  least,  he 
refused  to  enter  Shelley's  house  while  "  she  was  in  it," 
and  was  only  constrained  to  do  so  by  an  entreaty  from 
Mary  herself.  On  the  whole  he  is  just,  even  generous, 
to  her  memory ;  but  he  certainly  preferred  Harriett, 
if  only  on  the  ground  of  her  surpassing  beauty. 

It  is  well  known  that  Peacock  portrayed  Shelley 
in  the  "  Scythrop  "  of  "  Nightmare  Abbey,"  and  it  is 
pleasant  to  remember  that  Shelley  admitted  the  truth 
of  the  portrait,  and  was  amused  by  it.  Specially 
pointed  was  the  passage  wherein  Scythrop,  who  loves 
two  young  ladies  at  once,  tells  his  distracted  father 
that  he  will  commit  suicide  :— There  is  no  doubt  that 
if  Shelley  could  have  kept  both  Harriett  and  Mary  he 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  177 

would  have  been  happy ;  for  he,  more  than  most  men, 
needed  the  triple  wifehood  so  amusingly  described  in 
"  Realmah."  Seriously  speaking,  the  picture  of  the 
man  Shelley,  as  depicted  by  Peacock,  directly  in  his 
"  Memorials,"  and  indirectly  in  the  novel,  is  far  more 
lovable  and  fascinating  than  the  "divine"  characterless 
humanitarian  whom  hero-worshippers  love  to  paint. 

I   do    not   propose   to   attempt,  on   the    present 
occasion,  any  estimate  of  Peacock's  novels,  although 
I  believe  they  are  entitled  to  a  far  higher  place  in 
literature  than  Lord  Houghton  seems  inclined  to  give 
them;  but  they  are  full  of    opinions  which  he  ex- 
pressed even  more  admirably  in  conversation.     His 
detestation  of  the  literary  class  lasted  until  the  end. 
"The  understanding  of  literary  people,"  he  affirmed, 
"  is  exalted,  not  so  much  by  the  love  of  truth  and 
virtue,  as  by  arrogance  and  self-sufficiency;  and  there 
is,  perhaps,  less  disinterestedness,  less  liberality,  less 
general  benevolence,  and  more  envy,  hatred,  and  un- 
charitableness  among  them,  than  among  any  other 
description  of  men."     In  his  young  days  he  had  cut 
and  slashed  at  his  brethren,  especially  at  the  Lake 
Poets,   whom    he   appreciated   very   much    notwith- 
standing.    Latterly  he   was   wont   to   affirm,   as   in 
"  Gryll  Grange,"  that  "  Shakespeare  never  makes  a 
flower    blossom    out    of    season,   and    Wordsworth, 
Coleridge,  and  Southey  are  true  to  nature  in  this  and 
in  all  other  respects"     He  hated  Moore  as  much  as  he 
loved   Burns.     "  Moore's   imagery,"   he   makes    Mr. 
MacBorrowdale  say,  "  is  all  false.     Here  is  a  highly 
applauded  stanza  : 

"The  night  dew  of  heaven,  though  in  silence  it  weeps, 
Shall  brighten  with  verdure  the  sod  where  he  sleeps ; 
And  the  tear  that  we  shed,  though  in  secret  it  rolls, 
Shall  long  keep  his  memory  green  in  our  souls. 

N 


i;8  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

But  it  will  not  bear  analysis.  The  dew  is  the  cause 
of  the  verdure,  but  the  tear  is  not  the  cause  of  the 
memory — the  memory  is  the  cause  of  the  tear."  I 
am  sorry  to  say  he  could  never  be  persuaded  to 
appreciate  Tennyson.  Specially  offensive  to  him 
was  the  laureate's  picture  of  Cleopatra  as  "  a  queen 
with  swarthy  cheeks  and  bold  black  eyes,  brow-bound 
with  burning  gold."  "  Thus/'  he  writes,  "  one  of  our 
most  popular  poets  describes  Cleopatra  ;  and  one  of 
our  most  popular  artists  has  illustrated  the  descrip- 
tion by  a  portrait  of  a  hideous  grinning  Ethiop 
.  .  .  .  Cleopatra  was  a  Greek,  the  daughter  of 
Ptolemy  Auletes  and  a  lady  of  Pontus.  The  Pto- 
lemies were  Greeks,  and  whoever  will  look  at  their 
genealogy,  their  medals,  and  their  coins,  will  see  how 
carefully  they  kept  their  pure  Greek  blood  uncon- 
taminated  by  African  intermixture.  Think  of  this 
description  and  this  picture  applied  to  one  who,  Dio 
says — and  all  antiquity  confirms  him — was  f  the  most 
superlatively  beautiful  of  women,  splendid  to  see,  and 
delightful  to  hear/*  For  she  was  eminently  accom- 
plished :  she  spoke  many  languages  with  grace  and 
facility.  Her  mind  was  as  wonderful  as  her  personal 
beauty.  There  is  not  a  shadow  of  intellectual  ex- 
pression in  that  horrible  portrait."  For  the  rest,  the 
Cleopatra  of  Shakespeare  delighted  him,  as  having 
not  one  feature  in  common  with  that  other  abominable 
"  Queen  of  Bembo." 

He  was  a  great  believer  in  Greek  painting,  with 
its  total  absence  of  perspective  ;  nevertheless,  he 
abhorred  pre-Raphaelism,  though  it  loves  perspective 
as  little  as  the  Greeks  !  But  in  fact,  he  was  generally 


*  Il€piK.a\\((TTUT7)  yvmuftSp  .  .  .  Xa/i7rpa  re  Idclv  KOI  a.KOva-6r]vat 
ouo-a.— DIO.  xlii.  34. 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  179 

inclined  to  cry  with  his  own  Gryllus,  in  "  Aristophanes 
in  London"  : 

" — All  the  novelties  I  yet  have  seen, 
Seem  changes  for  the  worse." 

New  schools  of  painting  and  poetry  attracted  him  as 
little  as  new  science.  One  of  his  prejudices  was 
amusing  in  the  extreme,  and  it  is  foreshadowed,  like 
so  many  of  his  latter  peculiarities,  in  "  Gryll  Grange." 
Great  as  was  his  knowledge  of  Greek,  Latin,  Italian, 
and  French — which  Home  Tooke  calls  "  the  usual 
bounds  of  a  scholar's  acquisition  " — and  considerable 
as  was  his  interest  in  Goethe  and  the  Weimar 
circle,  he  disliked  everything  German,  and  never 
attempted  to  learn  that  wonderful  language,  which 
may  be  said  to  be  the  key  to  the  golden  chamber  of 
modern  poetry  and  philosophy.  Mr.  Falconer  ob- 
serves in  "  Gryll  Grange/'  quoting  a  dictum  of 
Person's,  that  "  Life  is  too  short  to  learn  German ; 
meaning,  I  apprehend,  not  that  it  is  too  difficult  to  be 
acquired  within  the  ordinary  space  of  life,  but  that 
there  is  nothing  in  it  to  compensate  for  the  portion  of 
life  bestowed  in  its  acquirement,however  little  that  may 
be!"  He  used  toquote  with  a  chuckle  Person's  doggerel: 

"  The  Germans  in  Greek 
Are  sadly  to  seek  ; 
Save  only  Hermann, 
And  Hermann's  a  German  ! " 

It  is  strange  that  he  was  not  curious  in  this  direction, 
for  his  literary  appetite  was  unbounded.  When  we 
first  met,  and  when  he  was  approaching  his  eightieth 
year,  he  was  studying  Spanish,  in  order  to  read  the 
Autos  and  other  masterpieces  of  Calderon.  Conceive 
the  literary  vitality,  in  an  old  man  of  that  age,  which 
would  urge  him  on  to  the  study  of  a  tongue  almost 
new  to  him  !  The  task  was  a  comparatively  easy 
one,  of  course,  from  his  consummate  knowledge  of 

N  2 


i8o  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

other  kindred  tongues,  but  it  still  possessed  difficulties 
enough  to  daunt  a  less  earnest  lover  of  learning.  His 
cry  for  more  light,  like  that  of  the  old  Goethe,  was 
heard  till  the  very  last. 

As  I  write  of  him,  and  look  again  upon  the  photo- 
graph of  his  genial  features,  I  am  reminded,  by  a 
certain  general  resemblance  to  the  portraits  of 
Thackeray,  that  the  author  of  "  Vanity  Fair  "  was  one 
of  his  greatest  admirers,  and  wrote  to  him  several 
pleasant  letters,  in  one  of  which,  which  I  saw,  he 
promised  to  pay  a  long  visit  to  Lower  Halliford.  I 
do  not  think  the  visit  was  ever  paid;  but  it  is 
pleasant  to  think  of  those  two  men  in  company,  for 
they  possessed  many  characteristics  in  common. 
What  evenings  there  would  have  been  in  the  old 
house  at  Halliford  if  Thackeray  had  come  !  What 
capping  of  quotations,  what  mellow  music  of  eight- 
eenth century  voices,  while  these  two  kindred  spirits 
drank  their  after-dinner  wine !  For  Thackeray's 
heart  was  with  the  eighteenth  century  too  ;  and  either 
one  or  the  other  of  these  two  white-headed  "  old 
boys"  would  have  been  quite  at  home,  if  suddenly 
translated  back  in  time,  and  set  down  by  Temple  Bar 
with  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  or  with  Pope  in  his 
villa  at  Twickenham,  or  in  a  Whitefriars  hostelry 
with  Dick  Steele.  On  such  an  evening,  when  the  old 
heart  was  warm  with  wine,  and  after  Thackeray,  per- 
haps, had  trolled  out  to  his  host's  delight  the  ballad 
of  "  Little  Billee,"  or  "  Peg  of  Linavaddy,"  I  can 
conceive  the  author  of  "Gryll  Grange"  reciting,  in 
that  rich,  mellow  voice  of  his,  his  own  lovely  verses 
called  "  Love  and  Age  :  " 

I  played  with  you  'mid  cowslips  blowing, 

When  I  was  six  and  you  were  four  ; 
When  garlands  weaving,  flower-balls  throwing, 

Were  pleasures  soon  to  please  no  more. 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  181 

Through  groves  and  meads,  o'er  grass  and  heather, 

With  little  playmates,  to  and  fro, 
We  wandered  hand  in  hand  together  ; 

But  that  was  sixty  years  ago. 

You  grew  a  lovely  roseate  maiden, 

And  still  our  early  love  was  strong  ; 
Still  with  no  care  our  days  were  laden, 

They  glided  joyously  along  ; 
And  I  did  love  you  very  dearly, 

How  dearly  words  want  power  to  show  ; 
I  thought  your  heart  was  touched  as  nearly  ; 

But  that  was  fifty  years  ago. 

Then  other  lovers  came  around  you, 

Your  beauty  grew  from  year  to  year  ; 
And  many  a  splendid  circle  found  you 

The  centre  of  its  glittering  sphere. 
I  saw  you  then,  first  vows  forsaking, 

On  rank  and  wealth  your  hand  bestow  ; 
Oh,  then  I  thought  my  heart  was  breaking, — 

But  that  was  forty  years  ago. 

And  I  lived  on,  to  wed  another  : 

No  cause  she  gave  me  to  repine  ; 
And  when  I  heard  you  were  a  mother, 

I  did  not  wish  the  children  mine. 
My  own  young  flock,  in  fair  progression, 

Made  up  a  pleasant  Christmas  row  : 
My  joy  in  them  was  past  expression, — 

But  that  was  thirty  years  ago. 

You  grew  a  matron  plump  and  comely, 

You  dwelt  in  fashion's  brightest  blaze  ; 
My  earthly  lot  was  far  more  homely  ; 

But  I  too  had  my  festal  days. 
No  merrier  eyes  have  ever  glistened 

Around  the  hearthstone's  wintry  glow, 
Than  when  my  youngest  child  was  christened, — 

But  that  was  twenty  years  ago. 

Time  passed.     My  eldest  girl  was  married, 

And  I  am  now  a  grandsire  gray  ; 
One  pet  of  four  years  old  I've  carried 

Among  the  wild-flowered  meads  to  play. 
In  our  old  fields  of  childish  pleasure, 

Where  now,  as  then,  the  cowslips  blow, 
She  fills  her  baskets  ample  measure, — 

And  that  is  not  ten  years  ago. 


182  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

But  though  first  love's  impassioned  blindness 

Has  passed  away  in  colder  light, 
I  still  have  thought  of  you  with  kindness, 

And  shall  do,  till  our  last  good-night. 
The  ever-rolling  silent  hours 

Will  bring  a  time  we  shall  not  know, 
When  our  young  days  of  gathering  flowers 

Will  be  a  hundred  years  ago. 

And  we  know  that  this  was  the  very  sort  of  music  to 
fill  the  great  guest's  eyes  with  tears,  though  it  spoke 
only,  like  his  more  sad  prose  muse,  of  "Vanity, 
Vanity !  "  Thackeray  touched  the  same  note  re- 
peatedly— it  was  an  habitual  one  with  him — but  he 
never  touched  it  more  delicately,  or  with  a  truer 
pathos.  A  little  longer,  and  both  were  at  rest,  the 
veteran  worn  out  with  years,  and  the  great  good  man 
struck  down  in  the  prime  of  his  powers. 

Ignorant  of  the  world  as  it  is,  circumscribed  in  his 
vision  like  all  students  of  books,  narrowed  to  the  know- 
ledge of  a  good  library  and  a  few  green  walks,  thus 
Thomas  Peacock  passed  away.  He  lived  to  see  the 
curious  theories  which  he  developed  so  wonderfully  in 
"  Melincourt,"  and  to  many  of  which  he  was  indebted 
to  Lord  Monboddo,  assuming  an  importance  in  the 
history  of  science  which  fairly  startled  him.  The 
generalisations  made  by  quidnuncs  from  Darwin's 
facts,  and  which,  rather  than  Darwin's  own  teaching, 
constitute  "  Darwinism,"  were  sufficiently  portentous 
to  fill  an  eighteenth  century  satirist  with  comic 
wonder.  What  Peacock's  own  views  were  as  to  the 
origin  and  destiny  of  Man,  I  cannot  tell  :  on  such 
subjects  he  was  reticent ;  but  his  sympathies  were 
with  the  antique  world,  and  I  dare  say  he  would  not 
have  discountenanced  a  proposal  once  entertained  by 
Mr.  Ruskin,  to  revive  the  worship  of  Diana.  At  any 
rate,  he  was  quite  pagan  enough  to  astonish  con- 


THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.  183 

ventional  people.  Miss  Nichols,  in  her  excellent  and 
thoroughly  sympathetic  little  sketch  of  her  grand- 
father, prefixed  to  the  collected  works,  tells  a  striking 
anecdote  illustrative  of  his  pleasant  paganism.  Shortly 
before  his  death,  a  fire  broke  out  in  the  roof  of  his 
bedroom,  and  he  was  taken  to  the  library,  which  lay 
at  the  other  end  of  the  house.  "  At  one  time  it  was 
feared  the  fire  was  gaining  ground,  and  that  it  would 
be  needful  to  move  him  into  one  of  the  houses  of  the 
neighbourhood,  but  he  refused  to  move.  The  curate, 
who  came  kindly  to  beg  my  grandfather  to  take 
shelter  in  his  house,  received  rather  a  rough  and 
startlmg  reception,  for  in  answer  to  the  invitation,  my 
grandfather  exclaimed  with  great  warmth  and  energy, 
'  By  the  immortal  gods,  I  will  not  move  ! ' '' 

Smile  as  we  may  at  the  formality  and  pedantry  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  there  were  giants  in  those 
days  ;  and  Peacock  resembled  them  in  intellectual 
stature.  His  books  will  live,  if  only  for  their  touches 
of  quaint  erudition ;  but  they  abound  in  delicious  little 
pictures,  such  as  that  of  Mr.  Falconer  and  his  seven 
Vestal  attendants  in  "  Gryll  Grange,"  or  those  of 
Coleridge  and  Shelley  in  "  Nightmare  Abbey."  Sir 
Oran  Haut-ton  is  perfect,  a  masterpiece  of  characteri- 
sation, and  as  for  Dr.  Opimian,  he  is  as  sure  of  im- 
mortality as  "my  Uncle  Toby"  himself.  But  the 
true  glory  of  Peacock  was  his  delicious  personality. 
To  have  known  and  spoken  with  such  a  man,  is  in 
itself  part  of  a  liberal  education.  I  shall  not  soon 
forget  that  we  sipped  "  Falernian  "  together,  though 
the  "  Falernian  "  was  no  stronger  than  May  Rosewell's 
cowslip-wine.  Circumstances  called  me  back  to  Scot- 
land, and  during  the  short  period  preceding  his  decease, 
we  did  not  meet.  Only  a  few  days  before  his  death 
he  dreamed  of  his  "  dear  Fanny,"  the  maiden  who  had 


1 84  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

been  his  first  love,  and  for  weeks  together  she  came  to 
him  in  his  sleep,  gently  smiling.  Thus  the  Immortal 
Ones,  call  them  by  what  names  we  may,  were  good  to 
him  until  the  very  end ;  and  while  that  first  and  last 
dream  was  bright  within  him,  he  sank  to  rest.  Let 
us  fancy  that,  though  life  parted  him  from  his  first 
love,  in  death  they  were  not  divided;  nor  shall  be, 
even  when — 

The  ever-rolling  silent  hours 

Have  brought  a  time  they  do  not  know, 

When  their  young  days  of  gathering  flowers 
Will  be  a  hundred  years  ago ! 


SYDNEY     DOBELL, 

AND 

THE     "  SPASMODIC     SCHOOL." 

A    SOUVENIR. 


IN  the  winter  of  1860,  as  I  sat  alone,  writing,  in  what 
David  Gray  described  as  the  "  dear  old  ghastly  bank- 
rupt garret  at  No.  66,"  Lucinda  from  the  kitchen 
came  panting  upstairs  with  a  card,  on  which  was 
inscribed  the  name  of  "  Sydney  Dobell  ; "  and  in  less 
than  five  minutes  afterwards  I  was  conversing  eagerly, 
and  face  to  face,  with  a  man  who  had  been  my  first 
friend  and  truest  helper  in  the  great  world  of  letters. 
It  was  our  first  meeting.  David  Gray,  whom  Dobell 
had  assisted  with  a  caressing  and  angelic  patience, 
never  knew  him  at  all,  but  was  at  that  very  moment 
lying  sick  to  death  in  the  little  cottage  at  Merkland, 
pining  and  hoping  against  hope  for  such  a  meeting. 
"  How  about  Dobell  ? "  he  wrote  a  little  later,  in 
answer  to  my  announcement  of  the  visit.  "  Did  your 
mind  of  itself,  or  even  against  itself,  recognise  through 
the  clothes  a  man — a  poet  /  Has  he  the  modesty  and 
makc-himself-at-home  manner  of  Milnes?"  What 
answer  I  gave  to  these  eager  inquiries  I  do  not  re- 
member, nor  would  it  be  worth  recording,  for  I 


1 86  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

myself  at  that  time  was  only  a  boy,  with  little  or  no 
experience  of  things  and  men.  But  even  now,  across 
the  space  of  dull  and  sorrowful  years,  comes  the 
vision  of  as  sweet  and  shining  a  face  as  ever  brought 
joy  and  comfort  this  side  of  the  grave  ;  of  a  voice 
musical  and  low,  "excellent"  in  all  its  tones  as  the 
voice  of  the  tenderest  woman  ;  of  manners  at  once 
manly  and  caressing,  bashful  and  yet  bold,  with  a 
touch  of  piteous  gentleness  which  told  a  sad  tale  of 
feeble  physical  powers  and  the  tortured  sense  of  bodily 
despair. 

I  saw  him  once  or  twice  afterwards,  and  had  a 
glimpse  of  that  fellow-sufferer,  his  wife.  He  was 
staying  with  some  friends  on  the  hills  of  Hampstead, 
and  thither  I  trudged  to  meet  him,  and  to  listen  to 
his  sparkling 'poetic  speech.  I  recall  now,  with  a 
curious  sense  of  pain,  that  my  strongest  feeling  con- 
cerning him,  at  that  time,  was  a  feeling  of  wonder  at 
the  gossamer-like  frailness  of  his  physique  and  the 
almost  morbid  refinement  of  his  conversation.  These 
two  characteristics,  which  would  be  ill  comprehended 
by  a  boy  in  the  rude  flush  of  health  and  hope,  and 
with  a  certain  audacity  of  physical  well-being,  struck 
me  strangely  kthen,  and  came  back  upon  my  heart 
with  terrible  meaning  now.  Combined  with  this  feel- 
ing of  wonder  and  pity  was  blended,  of  necessity,  one 
of  fervent  gratitude.  Some  little  time  previous  to 
our  first  meeting,  I  had  come,  a  literary  adventurer, 
to  London  ;  with  no  capital  but  a  sublime  self-assur- 
ance which  it  has  taken  many  long  years  to  tame 
into  a  certain  obedience  and  acquiescence.  About  the 
same  time,  David  Gray  had  also  set  foot  in  the  great 
City.  And  Sydney  Dobell  had  helped  us  both,  as  no 
other  living  man  could  or  would.  For  poor  Gray's 
wild  yet  gentle  dreams,  and  for  my  coarser  and  less 


SYDNEY  DO  BELL.  187 

conciliatory  ambition,  he  had  nothing  but  words  of 
wisdom  and  gentle  remonstrance.  None  of  our  folly 
daunted  him.  He  wrote,  with  the  heart  of  an  angel, 
letters  which  might  have  tamed  the  madness  in  the 
heart  of  a  devil.  He  helped,  he  warned,  he  watched 
us,  with  unwearying  care.  In  the  midst  of  his  own 
solemn  sorrows,  which  we  so  little  understood,  he 
found  heart  of  grace  to  sympathise  with  our  wild 
struggles  for  the  unattainable.  At  a  period  when 
writing  was  a  torture  to  him,  he  devoted  hours  of 
correspondence  to  the  guidance  and  instruction  of 
two  fellow-creatures  he  had  never  seen.  To  receive 
one  of  his  gracious  and  elaborate  epistles,  finished 
with  the  painful  care  which  this  lordly  martyr  be- 
stowed on  the  most  trifling  thing  he  did,  was  to  be  in 
communication  with  a  spirit  standing'  on  the  very 
heights  of  life.  I,  at  least,  little  comprehended  the 
blessing  then.  But  it  came,  with  perfect  consecra- 
tion, on  David  Gray's  dying  bed  ;  it  made  his  last 
days  blissful,  and  it  helped  to  close  his  eyes  in  peace. 
No  one  who  knew  Sydney  Dobell,  no  one  who 
had  ever  so  brief  a  glimpse  of  him,  can  read  without 
tears  the  simple  and  beautiful  Memorials,  now  just 
published,  of  his  gracious,  quiet,  and  uneventful  life. 
Predestined  to  physical  martyrdom,  he  walked  the 
earth  for  fifty  years,  at  the  bidding  of  what  to  our 
imperfect  vision  seems  a  pitiless  and  inscrutable 
Destiny.  Why  this  divinely  gifted  being,  whose  soul 
seemed  all  goodness,  and  whose  highest  song  would 
have  been  an  inestimable  gain  to  humanity,  should 
have  been  struck  down  again  and  again  by  blows  so 
cruel,  is  a  question  which  pricks  the  very  core  of  that 
tormenting  conscience  which  is  in  us  all.  Ill-luck 
dogged  his  footsteps  ;  sickness  encamped  wherever 
he  found  a  home.  His  very  goodness  and  gentleness 


i88  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

seemed  at  times  his  bane.  At  an  age  when  other 
men  are  revelling  in  mere  existence  he  was  being 
taught  that  mere  existence  is  torture.  We  have  read 
of  Christian  martyrs,  of  all  the  fires  through  which 
they  passed  ;  but  surely  not  one  of  them  ever  fought 
with  such  tormenting  flames  as  did  this  patient  poet, 
whose  hourly  cry  was  of  the  kindness  and  goodness 
of  God.  From  first  to  last,  no  word  of  anger,  no 
utterance  of  fierce  arraignment,  passed  his  lips. 

The  best  of  men 

That  e'er  wore  earth  about  him  was  a  sufferer — 
The  first  true  Gentleman  that  ever  lived. 

And  like  that  "best  of  men/'  Sydney  Dobell 
troubled  himself  to  make  no  complaint,  but  took  the 
cup  of  sorrow  and  drained  it  to  the  bitter  dregs. 
Such  a  record  of  such  a  life  stops  the  cry  on  the  very 
lips  of  blasphemy,  and  makes  us  ask  ourselves  if  that 
life  did  not  possess,  direct  from  God,  some  benedic- 
tion, some  comfort  unknown  to  us.  So  it  must  have 
been.  "Looking  up,"  as  a  writer*  on  the  subject 
has  beautifully  put  it,  "  he  saw  the  heavens  opened." 
These  pathetic  glimpses  seemed  comfort  enough. 

Doubtless  to  some  readers  of  this  book  the 
very  name  of  Sydney  Dobell  is  unfamiliar.  To  all 
students  of  modern  poetry  it  is  of  course  more  or  less 
known,  as  that  of  one  of  the  chief  leaders  of  the 
school  of  verse  known  by  its  enemies  as  "  the  Spas- 
modic." With  Philip  James  Bailey  and  Alexander 
Smith,  Dobell  reigned  for  a  lustrum,  to  the  great 
wonder  and  confusion  of  honest  folk,  who  pinned 
their  faith  on  Tennyson's  "  Gardener's  Daughter " 
and  Longfellow's  "  Psalm  of  Life."  His  day  of 
reign  was  that  of  Gilfillan's  "  Literary  Portraits  "  and 

*  Matthew  Browne,  in  the  Contemporary  Review. 


SYDNEY  DO  BELL.  189 

of  the  lurid  apparition,  Stanjan  Bigg;  of  the  mar- 
vellous monologue,  and  the  invocation  without  an 
end  ;  of  the  resurrection  of  a  Drama  which  had  never 
lived,  to  hold  high  jinks  and  feasting  with  a  literary 
Mycerinus  who  was  about  to  die.  It  was  a  period  of 
poetic  incandescence  ;  new  suns,  not  yet  spherical, 
whirling  out  hourly  before  the  public  gaze,  and 
vanishing  instantly  into  space,  to  live  on,  however, 
in  the  dusky  chronology  of  the  poetic  astronomer, 
Gilfillan.  The  day  passed,  the  school  vanished. 
Where  is  the  school  now  ? 

Where  are  the  snows  of  yester-year  ? 

Yet  they  who  underrate  that  school  know  little  what 
real  poetry  is.  It  was  a  chaos,  granted  ;  but  a  chaos 
capable,  under  certain  conditions,  of  being  shaped 
into  such  creations  as  would  put  to  shame  many 
makers  of  much  of  our  modern  verse.  As  it  is,  we 
may  discover  in  the  writings  of  Sydney  Dobell  and 
his  circle  solid  lumps  of  pure  poetic  ore,  of  a  quality 
scarcely  discoverable  in  modern  literature  this  side  of 
the  Elizabethan  period. 

Sydney  Dobell  was  born  at  Cranbrook,  in  Kent,  on 
April  5,  1824.  Both  on  the  paternal  and  maternal 
side  he  was  descended  from  people  remarkable  for 
their  Christian  virtues  and  strong  religious  instincts ; 
and  from  his  earliest  years  he  was  regarded  by  his 
parents  as  having  "a  special  and  even  apostolic 
mission."  The  story  of  his  child-life,  indeed,  is  one 
of  those  sad  records  of  unnatural  precocity,  caused  by 
a  system  of  early  forcing,  which  have  of  late  years 
become  tolerably  familiar  to  the  public.  He  seems 
never  to  have  been  strong,  and  his  naturally  feeble 
constitution  was  undermined  by  habits  of  introspec- 
tion. It  is  painfully  touching  now  to  read  the  extracts 


igo  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

from  his  father's  note-book,  full  of  a  quaint  Puritan 
simplicity,  and  an  overmastering  spiritual  faith. 
Here  is  one  : 

I  used  frequently  to  talk  to  him  of  how  delightful  and 
blessed  it  would  be  if  any  child  would  resolve  to  live  as  pure, 
virtuous,  and  holy  a  life,  as  dedicated  to  the  will  and  service  of 
God,  as  Jesus.  I  used  to  say  to  him  that  if  one  could  ever  be 
found  again  who  was  spotless  and  holy,  it  was  with  me  a  pleas- 
ing speculation  and  hope  that  such  a  character  might  even  in 
this  life,  be  called  as  a  special  instrument  of  our  Heavenly  Father 
for  some  great  purpose  with  His  Church,  or  with  the  Jews. 

The  seed  thus  sown  by  the  zealous  parent  bore 
fruit  afterwards  in  a  disposition  of  peculiar  sweet- 
ness, yet  ever  conscious  of  the  prerogatives  and  pre- 
judices of  a  Christian  warrior.  Out  of  the  many  who 
are  called  Sydney  Dobell  believed  himself  specially 
chosen,  if  not  to  fulfil  any  divine  mission  "  with  the 
Church  or  with  the  Jews,"  at  least  to  preach  and  sing 
in  the  God-given  mantle  of  fire  which  men  call 
genius.  In  his  leading  works,  but  especially  in 
"  Balder,"  he  preached  genius-worship  ;  of  all  forms 
of  hero-worship,  devised  by  students  of  German 
folios,  the  most  hopeless  and  the  most  hope-destroy- 
ing. Thenceforward  isolation  became  a  habit,  intro- 
spection an  intellectual  duty.  With  all  his  love  for 
his  fellow-men,  and  all  his  deep  sympathy  with 
modern  progress,  he  lacked  to  the  end  a  certain 
literary  robustness,  which  only  comes  to  a  man  made 
fully  conscious  that  Art  and  Literature  are  not  Life 
itself,  but  only  Life's  humble  handmaids.  He  was 
too  constantly  overshadowed  with  his  mission.  For- 
tunately, however,  that  very  mission  became  his  only 
solace  and  comfort  when  his  days  of  literary  martyr- 
dom came.  He  went  to  the  stake  of  criticism  with  a 
smile  on  his  face,  almost  disarming  his  torturers  and 
executioners. 


SYDNEY  DODELL.  191 

When  Sydney  was  three  years  old  his  father  failed 
in  business  as  a  hide  merchant,  and,  removing  to 
London,  started  as  a  wine  merchant.  "  About  this 
time,"  says  the  biographer,  "  Sydney  was  described 
as  of  very  astonishing  understanding,  as  preferring 
mental  diversion  to  eating  and  drinking,  and  very 
inventive  with  tales."  Strange  moods  of  sorrow  and 
self-pity  began  to  trouble  his  life  at  the  age  of  four. 
At  eight,  it  was  recorded  of  him  that  he  "  had  never 
been  known  to  tell  an  untruth."  From  seven  years 
of  age  he  imitated  the  paternal  habit,  and  used  "  little 
pocket-books  "  to  note  down  his  ideas,  his  bits  of 
acquired  knowledge,  his  simple  questions  on  spiritual 
subjects.  For  example  :  "  Report  of  the  Controversy 
of  Porter  and  Bagot.  Mr.  Porter  maintains  that 
Jesus  Christ  lived  in  heaven  with  God  before  the 
beginning  of  the  world."  At  the  age  of  ten,  he  was 
an  omnivorous  reader,  and  the  habit  of  verse-writing 
was  growing  steadily  upon  him.  I  know  nothing 
more  pitiful  in  literature  than  the  story  of  his  pre- 
cocity, in  all  its  cruel  and  touching  details.  At 
twelve  years  of  age  he  was  sufficiently  matured  to  fall 
in  love,  the  object  of  his  passion  being  Emily  Ford- 
ham,  the  lady  who  only  nine  years  afterwards  became 
his  wife.  By  this  time  his  father  had  removed  to 
Cheltenham,  and  had  set  up  in  business  there. 
Sydney  and  the  rest  of  the  children  still  remained  at 
home,  and  thus  missed  all  the  invigorating  influences 
of  a  public  school ;  for  the  father  belonged  to  the 
sect  of  Separatists  which  holds  as  cardinal  the  doctrine 
of  avoiding  those  who  hold  adverse,  or  different,  reli- 
gious views. 

The  account  of  that  dreary  life  of  drudgery  and 
over-work  at  Cheltenham  may  be  sadly  passed  over ; 
it  is  a  life  not  good  to  think  of,  and  its  few  gleams  of 


192  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

sunshine  are  too  faint  and  feeble  to  detain  the  reader 
long.  From  the  date  of  his  removal  to  Cheltenham 
he  acted  as  his  father's  clerk.  The  account  of  the 
period  extending  from  his  twelfth  year  to  the  date  of 
his  marriage  is  one  of  hard,  uncongenial  toil,  varied 
by  scripture-readings  of  doubtful  edification,  and  a 
passion  morbid  and  almost  pedantic  in  the  old- 
fashioned  quaintness  of  its  moods.  The  biographer's 
record  may  form,  as  we  are  told,  "  a  one-sided  and 
painful  picture,"  but  we  suspect  that  it  is  a  true  one, 
truer,  that  is  to  say,  than  the  idea  in  its  author's 
memory  of  "  light,  buoyant,  various,  and  vigorous 
activity."  The  truth  is,  the  parents  of  the  poet  blun- 
dered in  blindness,  a  blindness  chiefly  due  to  their 
remarkable  religious  belief.  His  father  especially, 
despite  all  his  kindness  of  heart,  was  strenuous  to  the 
verge  of  bigotry.  One  can  scarcely  remark  without 
a  smile  the  inconsistency  with  which  one  who  was  "  a 
publican,"  and  by  profession  a  vendor  of  convivial 
and  intoxicating  liquors,  held  aloof  from  the  non- 
elect  among  his  fellow-creatures.  "  Business  is  not 
brisk,"  he  wrote ;  "  I  can't  account  for  it,  except,  as 
usual,  in  our  retired  life  and  habits."  The  idea  of  a 
sad-eyed  Separatist  dealing  in  fiery  ports  and  sherries, 
shutting  out  the  world  and  yet  lamenting  when 
"  business  was  not  brisk,"  is  one  of  those  grim,  cruel, 
heart-breaking  jokes,  in  which  Humanity  is  so  rich, 
and  of  which  the  pathetic  art  of  the  humourist  offers 
the  only  bearable  solution. 

At  the  age  of  twenty,  Sydney  Dobell  was  married 
to  an  invalid  like  himself,  and  one  like  himself  of  a 
strong  Puritan  bias.  The  humourist  must  help  us 
again,  if  we  are  to  escape  a  certain  feeling  of  nausea 
at  the  details  of  this  courtship  and  union,  with  its 
odd  glimpses  of  personal  yearning,  its  fervent  sense 


SYDNEY  DO  BELL.  193 

of  the  "  mission,"  and  its  dreary  scraps  from  the  Old 
Testament.  The  young  couple  settled  down  together 
in  a  little  house  at  Cheltenham  ;  and  though  for  a 
time  they  avoided  all  society  and  still  adhered  to  the 
tenets  of  the  elect,  this  was  the  beginning  of  a 
broader  and  a  healthier  life.  All  might  perhaps  have 
been  well,  and  the  poet  have  cast  quite  away  the 
cloud  of  his  early  training,  but  for  one  of  those  cruel 
accidents  which  make  life  an  inscrutable  puzzle. 
Just  as  Sydney  Dobell  was  beginning  to  live,  just  as 
his  mind  was  growing  more  robust,  and  his  powers 
more  coherent  and  peaceful,  he  was  struck  by  rheu- 
matic fever,  caught  during  a  temporary  removal  to  a 
Devonshire  farmhouse.  As  if  that  were  not  enough, 
his  wife,  always  frail,  broke  down  almost  at  the  same 
time.  From  that  time  forward,  the  poet  and  his  wife 
were  fellow-sufferers,  each  watching  by  turns  over 
the  attacks  of  the  other.  It  may  be  said  without 
exaggeration,  that  neither  enjoyed  one  day  of 
thoroughly  buoyant  physical  health.  Still,  they  had 
a  certain  pensive  happiness,  relieved  in  the  husband's 
case  by  bursts  of  hectic  excitement. 

By  this  time,  when  Dobell  was  four-and-twenty 
years  of  age,  the  great  wave  of  '48  had  risen  and 
fallen,  and  its  influence  was  still  felt  in  the  hearts  of 
men.  It  was  a  time  of  revolutions,  moral  as  well  as 
political.  Dobell,  like  many  another,  felt  the  earth 
tremble  under  him  ;  watched  and  listened,  as  if  for  the 
signs  of  a  second  advent.  Then,  like  others,  he 
looked  across  France,  towards  Italy.  Thus  the 
"Roman"  was  planned;  thus  he  began  to  write  for  the 
journals  of  advanced  opinion.  He  had  now  a  wine 
business  of  his  own,  and  had  a  pleasant  country  house 
on  the  Cotswold  Hills.  Having  published  a  portion 
of  the  "  Roman  "  in  Taifs  Magazine,  he  was  led  to 

o 


194  A   LOOK  POUND  LITERATURE. 

correspond  with  the  then  Aristarchus  of  the  poetic 
firmament,  the  Rev.  George  Gilfillan.  Gilfillan 
roundly  hailed  him  as  a  poetic  genius,  and  he,  not 
ungrateful,  wrote  :  "  If  in  after  years  I  should  ever  be 
called  '  Poet,'  you  will  know  that  my  success  is,  in  some 
sort,  your  work."  Shortly  after  this,  he  went  to 
London  and  interviewed  Mr.  Carlyle.  "We  had  a 
tough  argument,"  he  wrote  to  Gilfillan,  "  whether  it 
were  better  to  have  learned  to  make  shoes  or  to  have 
written  '  Sartor  Resartus/ "  At  the  beginning  of 
1850  he  published  the  "Roman."  This  was  his  first 
great  literary  performance,  and  it  was  tolerably  suc- 
cessful :  that  is  to  say,  it  received  a  good  deal  of 
praise  from  the  newspapers,  and  circulated  in  small 
editions  among  the  general  public. 

The  subject  of  this  dramatic  poem  was  Italian 
liberty,  and  the  work  is  full  of  the  genius  and  pro- 
phecy of  1848.  The  leading  character  is  one  Vittorio 
Santo,  a  missionary  of  freedom,  who  (to  quote  the 
author's  own  argument)  "  has  gone  out  disguised  as  a 
monk  to  preach  the  cause  of  Italy,  the  overthrow  of 
the  Austrian  domination,  and  the  restoration  of  a  great 
Roman  Republic."  Santo,  in  the  course  of  the 
poem,  delivers  a  series  of  splendid  and  almost  pro- 
phetic sermons  on  the  heroic  life  and  the  great  heroic 
cause.  As  an  example  of  Dobell's  earlier  and  more 
rhetorical  manner,  I  will  transcribe  the  following 
powerful  lines : 

I  pray  you  listen  how  I  loved  my  mother, 
And  you  will  weep  with  me.     She  loved  me,  nurst  me, 
And  fed  my  soul  with  light.     Morning  and  even 
Praying,  I  sent  that  soul  into  her  eyes, 
And  knew  what  heaven  was,  though  I  was  a  child. 
I  grew  in  stature,  and  she  grew  in  goodness. 
I  was  a  grave  child  ;  looking  on  her  taught  me 
To  love  the  beautiful :  and  I  had  thoughts 
Of  Paradise,  when  other  men  have  hardly 


SYDNEY  DO  BELL. 

Looked  out  of  doors  on  earth.     (Alas  !  alas  ! 

That  I  have  also  learned  to  look  on  earth 

When  other  men  see  heaven.)     I  toiled,  but  even 

As  I  became  more  holy,  she  seemed  holier ; 

Kven  as  when  climbing  mountain-tops  the  sky 

Grows  ampler,  higher,  purer  as  ye  rise. 

Let  me  believe  no  more.     No,  do  not  ask  me 

How  I  repaid  my  mother.     O  thou  saint, 

That  lookest  on  me  day  and  night  from  heaven, 

And  smilest.     I  have  given  thee  tears  for  tears, 

Anguish  for  anguish,  woe  for  woe.     Forgive  me 

If  in  the  spirit  of  ineffable  penance 

In  words  I  waken  up  the  guilt  that  sleeps, 

Let  not  the  sound  afflict  thine  heaven,  or  colour 

That  pale,  tear-blotted  record  which  the  angels 

Keep  of  my  sins.     We  left  her.     I  and  all 

The  brothers  that  her  milk  had  fed.     We  left  her— 

And  strange  dark  robbers  with  unwonted  names 

Abused  her  !  bound  her  !  pillaged  her  !  profaned  her  ! 

Bound  her  clasped  hands,  and  gagged  the  trembling  lips 

That  prayed  for  her  lost  children.     And  we  stood, 

And  she  knelt  to  us,  and  we  saw  her  kneel, 

And  looked  upon  her  coldly  and  denied  her. 

*  *  *  *  * 

You  are  my  brothers.     And  my  mother  was 

Yours.     And  each  man  amongst  you  day  by  day 

Takes  bowing,  the  same  price  that  sold  my  mother, 

And  does  not  blush.     Her  name  is  Rome.     Look  around 

And  see  those  features  which  the  sun  himself 

Can  hardly  leave  for  fondness.     Look  upon 

Her  mountain  bosom,  where  the  very  sky 

Beholds  with  passion  ;  and  with  the  last  proud 

Imperial  sorrow  of  dejected  empire 

She  wraps  the  purple  round  her  outraged  breast, 

And  even  in  fetters  cannot  be  a  slave. 

Look  on  the  world's  best  glory  and  worst  shame. 

The  "  Roman  "  is  full  of  this  kind  of  fervour,  and  is 
maintained  throughout  at  a  fine  temperature  of  poetic 
eloquence.  Its  effect  on  the  ardent  youth  of  its  gene- 
ration must  have  been  considerable.  Perhaps  now, 
when  the  stormy  sea  of  Italian  politics  has  settled  down, 
it  may  be  lawful  to  ask  oneself  how  much  reality  there 
was  in  the  battle-songs  and  poems  that  accompanied 
or  preluded  the  tempest.  It  is  quite  conceivable,  at 

O    2 


196  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

least,  that  a  man  may  sing  very  wildly  about  "  Italy  " 
and  "  Rome  "  and  "  Freedom  "  without  any  definite 
idea  of  what  he  means,  and  without  any  particular 
feeling  for  human  nature  in  the  concrete.  This  was 
not  the  case  with  Dobell ;  every  syllable  of  his  stately 
song  came  right  out  of  his  heart.  For  this  Christian 
warrior,  like  many  another,  was  just  a  little  too  fond  of 
appeals  to  the  sword  ;  just  a  little  too  apt  to  pose  as 
"  an  Englishman  "  and  a  lover  of  freedom.  He  who 
began  with  sonorous  cadence  of  the  "Roman"  wrote, 
in  his  latter  moods,  the  wild  piece  of  gabble  called 
"  England's  Day."  The  "Roman,"  however,  remains  a 
fine  and  fervid  poem,  worthy  of  thrice  the  fame  it  is 
ever  likely  to  receive.  What  Mazzini  wrote  of  it  in 
1851  may  fully  be  remembered  at  this  hour,  when  it 
is  pretty  well  forgotten  : 

You  have  written  about  Rome  as  I  would,  had  I  been  born  a 
poet.  And  what  you  did  write  flows  from  the  soul,  the  all-loving, 
the  all-embracing,  the  prophet-soul.  It  is  the  only  true  source 
of  real  inspiration. 

Meantime  the  air  was  full  of  other  voices.  Carlyle 
was  croaking  and  prophesying,  with  a  strong  Dum- 
friesshire accent.  Bailey  had  amazed  the  world  with 
"  Festus/'  a  colossal  Conversationalist,  by  the  side  of 
whom  his  quite  clerical  and  feebly  genteel  "  Devil " 
seemed  a  pigmy.  Gilfillan  had  opened  his  wonder- 
ful Pie  of  "  Literary  Portraits,"  containing  more 
swarms  of  poetical  blackbirds  than  the  world  knew 
how  to  listen  to.  Mazzini  was  eloquent  in  reviews,  and 
George  Dawson  was  stumping  the  provinces  and 
converting  the  bourgeoisie. 

The  world  was  waiting  for  that  trumpet-blast, 

To  which  Humanity  should  rise  at  last 

Out  of  a  thousand  graves,  and  claim  its  throne. 

It  was  a  period  of  prodigious  ideas.  Every  literary 


SYDNEY  DOB  ELL.  197 

work  was  macrocosmic  and  colossal.  Every  poet, 
under  his  own  little  forcing  glass,  reared  a  Great 
Poem — a  sort  of  prodigious  pumpkin  which  ended  in 
utter  unwieldiness  and  wateriness.  No  sort  of  pre- 
paration was  necessary  either  for  the  throne  or  the 
laurel.  Kings  of  men,  king-hating,  sprang  to  full 
mental  light,  like  fungi,  in  a  night.  Quiet  tax-paying 
people,  awaking  in  bed,  heard  the  Chivalry  of  Labour 
passing,  with  hollow  music  of  fife  and  drum.  But  it 
was  a  grand  time  for  all  the  talents.  Woman  was 
awaking  to  a  sense  of  her  mission.  Charlotte  Bronte 
was  ready  with  the  prose-poem  of  the  century,  Mrs. 
Browning  was  touching  notes  of  human  pathos  which 
reached  to  every  factory  in  the  world.  Compared 
with  our  present  dead  swoon  of  Poetry,  a  swoon 
scarcely  relieved  at  all  by  the  occasional  smelling- 
salts  of  strong  aesthetics,  it  was  a  rich  and  golden 
time.  It  had  its  Dickens,  to  make  every  home  happy 
with  the  gospel  of  plum-pudding;  its  Tennyson,  to 
sing  beautiful  songs  of  the  middle-class  ideal,  and  the 
comfortable  clerical  sentiment  ;  its  Thackeray,  to 
relieve  the  passionate,  overcharged  human  heart  with 
the  prick  of  cynicism  and  the  moisture  of  self-pity. 
To  be  born  at  such  a  time  was  in  itself  (to  parody  the 
familiar  expression)  a  liberal  education.  We  who 
live  now  may  well  bewail  the  generation  which  pre- 
ceded us.  Some  of  the  old  deities  still  linger  with 
us,  but  only  "  in  idiocy  of  godhead,"  nodding  on  their 
mighty  seats.  The  clamour  has  died  away.  The 
utter  sterility  of  passion  and  the  hopeless  stagnation 
of  sentiment  nowadays  may  be  guessed  when  some 
little  clique  can  set  up  Gautier  in  a  niche:  Gautier,that 
hairdresser's  dummy  of  a  stylist,  with  his  complexion 
of  hectic  pink  and  waxen  white,  his  well-oiled  wig, 
and  his  incommunicable  scent  of  the  barber's  shop. 


198  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

What  an  apotheosis !  After  the  prophecies  of  '48  ; 
after  the  music  of  the  awakening  heart  of  Man  ;  after 
Emerson  and  the  newly-risen  moon  of  latter  Plato- 
nism,  shining  tenderly  on  a  world  of  vacant  thrones  ! 

Just  as  the  human  soul  was  most  expectant,  just 
as  the  Revolution  of  '48  had  made  itself  felt  wherever 
the  thoughts  of  men  were  free,  the  Sullen  Talent, 
tired  of  the  tame-eagle  dodge,  perpetrated  his  cotip 
d'etat,  stabbed  France  to  the  heart  with  his  assassin's 
dagger,  and  mounted  livid  to  his  throne  upon  her 
bleeding  breast.  It  is  very  piteous  to  read,  in  Dobell's 
biography  and  elsewhere,  of  the  utter  folly  which  re- 
cognised in  this  moody,  moping,  and  graceless  ruffian 
a  veritable  Saviour  of  Society.  The  great  woman- 
poet  of  the  period  hailed  him  holy,  and  her  great 
husband  approved  her  worship.  Dobell  had  doubts, 
not  many,  of  Napoleon's  consecration.  But  Robert 
Browning  and  Sydney  Dobell  both  lived  to  recognise 
in  the  lesser  Napoleon,  not  only  the  assassin  of  France 
political  and  social,  but  the  destroyer  of  literary  man- 
hood all  over  the  world.  Twenty  years  of  the  Second 
Empire,  twenty  years  of  a  festering  sore  which  con- 
taminated all  the  civilisation  of  the  earth,  were  destined 
to  follow.  We  reap  the  result  still,  in  a  society  given 
over  to  luxury  and  to  gold  ;  in  a  journalism  that  has 
lost  its  manhood,  and  is  supported  on  a  system  of  in- 
decent exposure  and  black-mail ;  in  a  literature  whose 
first  word  is  flippancy,  whose  last  word  is  prurience, 
and  whose  victory  is  in  the  orgies  of  a  naked  Dance 
of  Death. 

Be  all  that  as  it  may,  those  were  happy  times  for 
Sydney  Dobell.  In  one  brief  period  of  literary 
activity,  he  wrote  nearly  all  the  works  which  are  now 
associated  with  his  name.  To  this  period  belongs  his 
masterly  review  of  "  Currer  Bell,"  a  model  of  what 


SYDNEY  DO  BELL.  199 

such  criticism  should  be.  The  review  led  to  a  cor- 
respondence of  singular  interest  between  Miss  Bronte 
and  Dobell.  "  You  think  chiefly  of  what  is  to  be  done 
and  won  in  life,"  wrote  Charlotte ;  "  I,  what  is  to  be 
suffered  ...  If  ever  we  meet,  you  must  regard  me 
as  a  grave  sort  of  elder  sister."  By  this  period  the 
fountain  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  genius  was  dry ;  she 
knew  it,  though  the  world  thought  otherwise,  and 
hence  her  despair.  She  had  lived  her  life,  and  put  it 
all  into  one  immortal  book.  So  she  sat,  a  veiled 
figure,  by  the  side  of  the  urn  called  "Jane  Eyre." 
The  shadow  of  Death  was  already  upon  her  face. 

Dobell  now  began  to  move  about  the  world.  He 
went  to  Switzerland,  and  on  his  return  he  was  very 
busy  with  his  second  poem,  "  Balder."  While  labour- 
ing thus  he  first  heard  of  Alexander  Smith,  and 
having  read  some  of  the  new  poet's  passages  in  The 
Eclectic  Review,  wrote  thus  to  Gilfillan  :  "  But  has  he 
[Smith]  not  published  already,  either  in  newspapers 
or  periodicals?  Curiously  enough,  I  have  the  strongest 
impression  of  seeing  the  best  images  before,  and  I  am 
seldom  mistaken  in  these  remembrances."  This  was 
ominous,  of  course,  of  what  afterwards  took  place, 
when  the  notorious  charge  of  plagiarism  was  made 
against  Smith  in  The  Athenceum.  Shortly  afterwards 
he  became  personally  acquainted  with  Smith,  and 
learned  to  love  him  well.  He  was  now  himself,  how- 
ever, to  reap  the  bitters  of  adverse  criticism  in  the 
publication  of  his  poem  of  "  Balder."  In  this  extra- 
ordinary work,  the  leading  actors  are  only  a  poet  and 
his  wife,  a  doctor,  an  artist,  and  a  servant.  It  may  be 
admitted  at  once  that  the  general  treatment  verges  on 
the  ridiculous,  but  the  work  contains  passages  of  un- 
equalled beauty  and  sublimity.  The  public  reviews 
were  adverse,  and  even  personal  friends  shook  thei 

r 


200  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

heads  in  deprecation.  At  the  time  of  publication  he 
was  in  Edinburgh,  having  gone  thither  to  consult  Dr. 
(afterwards  Sir  James)  Simpson  on  the  illness  of  his 
wife,  and  there  he  was  to  remain  at  bay  during  all  the 
barking  of  the  journals.  A  little  cold  comfort  came 
from  Charlotte  Bronte. 

"  There  is  power  in  that  character  of  Balder,"  she  wrote, 
"  and  to  me,  a  certain  horror.  Did  you  mean  it  to  embody, 
along  with  force,  many  of  the  special  defects  of  the  artistic 
character?  It  seems  to  me  that  those  defects  were  never  thrown 
out  in  stronger  lines." 

Despite  the  ill-success  of  his  second  book,  Dobell 
spent  a  very  happy  season  in  Edinburgh.  If  not 
famous,  he  was  at  least  notorious,  and  was  well  enough 
in  health  to  enjoy  a  little  social  friction.  Alexander 
Smith,  the  secretary  to  the  University,  was  his  bosom 
friend;  and  among  his  other  companions  were  Samuel 
Brown,  Blackie,  and  Hunter  of  Craigcrook  Castle. 
" Smith  and  I,"  he  wrote,  "seemed  destined  to  be 
social  twins."  Just  then  there  appeared  in  Black- 
wood's'  Magazine  the  somewhat  flatulent  satire  of 
"  Firmilian, "  written  at  high  jinks  by  the  local  Yorickr 
Professor  Aytoun.  The  style  of  Dobell  and  Smith 
was  pretty  well  mimicked,  and  the  scene  in  which 
Gilfillan,  entering  as  Apollodorus,  was  killed  by  the 
friends  thrown  by  Balder  from  a  tower,  was  really 
funny.  The  poets  satirised  enjoyed  the  joke  as  much 
as  anybody,  but  they  little  guessed  that  it  was  a  joke 
of  a  very  fatal  kind.  From  the  moment  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  "spasmodic"  satire,  the  so-called 
spasmodic  school  was  ruined  in  the  eyes  of  the  general 
public.  A  violent  journalistic  prejudice  arose  against 
its  followers.  Even  Dobell's  third  book,  "  England 
in  Time  of  War,"  though  full  of  fine  lyrics,  entirely 
failed  to  reinstate  the  writer  in  public  opinion.  He 


SYDNEY  DOB  ELL.  201 

was  classed,  though  in  a  new  sense,  among  the  "  illus- 
triously obscure,"  and  he  remained  in  that  category 
until  the  day  he  died. 

Perhaps  the  plcasantest  of  all  his  days  were  those 
days  in  Edinburgh,  when,  in  conjunction  with  Smith, 
he  wrote  a  series  of  fine  sonnets  on  the  war,  which 
won  the  warm  approval  of  good  judges,  like  Mr. 
Tennyson.  There  was  something  almost  rapturous  in 
Smith's  opening  sonnet  to  Mrs.  Dobell — 

And  if  we  sing,  I  and  that  dearer  friend, 
Take  thou  our  music.     He  dwells  in  thy  light, 
Summer  and  spring,  blue  day  and  starry  night. 

A  friend  wrote  that  he  could  love  "Alexander" 
for  that  sonnet ;  and,  indeed,  who  could  not  love 
him  for  a  thousand  reasons  ?  The  story  of  Smith's 
martyrdom  has  yet  to  be  told — nay,  can  never  be 
told  this  side  of  the  grave.  But  let  this  suffice — it 
was  a  martyrdom  and  a  tragedy.  How  tranquilly,, 
how  beautifully,  Smith  took  the  injustice  and  the 
cruelty  of  the  world,  many  of  us  know.  Few  know 
the  rest.  It  was  locked  up  in  his  great  gentle  heart. 

When  I  have  mentioned  that,  immediately  after 
the  War  Sonnets,  Sydney  Dobell  issued  independently 
his  volume  of  prose,  "  England  in  Time  of  War,"  his 
literary  history  is  told.  Though  he  lived  on  for 
another  quarter  of  a  century,  he  never  published 
another  book.  Three  works,  "The  Roman,"  "Balder," 
and  "  England  in  Time  of  War/'  formed  the  sum  total 
of  his  contributions  to  literature  while  alive ;  and  all 
three  were  written  at  one  epoch,  in  what  Smith  called 
"  the  after-swell  of  the  revolutionary  impulse'of  1848." 
For  the  last  half  of  his  life  he  was  almost  utterly 
silent,  only  an  occasional  sonnet  in  a  magazine,  or  a 
letter  in  a  journal  on  some  political  subject,  reminding 


202  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  public  that  he  still  lived.  Of  this  long  silence  we 
at  last  know  the  pathetic  cause.  Sickness  pursued 
him  from  day  to  day,  from  hour  to  hour,  making 
strenuous  literary  effort  impossible.  Never  was  poet 
so  unlucky.  Read  the  whole  heart-rending  story  in 
his  biography ;  I  at  least  cannot  bear  to  linger  over 
these  tortures.  He  had  to  fight  for  mere  breath,  and 
he  had  little  strength  left  him  to  reach  out  hands  for 
the  laurel.  How  meekly  he  bore  his  martyrdom  I 
have  already  said. 

When  I  met  him  he  had  the  look  of  one  who 
might  not  live  long,  a  beautiful,  far-off,  suffering  look, 
wonderfully  reproduced  in  the  exquisite  picture  by 
his  younger  brother,  an  engraving  of  which  faces  the 
title-page  of  his  biography.  Many  years  later,  not 
long  indeed  before  his  death,  he  sent  me  a  photo- 
graph with  the  inscription  " Convalescent convalescenti'" 
but  all  photographs  reproduce  the  man  but  poorly, 
compared  with  the  picture  of  which  I  have  spoken. 
Even  then,  in  the  joy  fulness  of  his  eager  heart,  he 
thought  himself  "  convalescent/'  and  was  looking  for- 
ward to  busy  years  of  life.  It  was  not  to  be.  No 
sooner  was  his  gentle  frame  reviving  from  one  luck- 
less accident,  than  Fate  was  ready  with  another. 
"  The  pity  of  it,  the  pity  of  it ! "  It  is  impossible  to 
think  of  his  sufferings  without  wondering  at  the  firm- 
ness of  his  faith. 

When  Death  came  at  last,  after  years  of  nameless 
torture,  only  a  few  cold  paragraphs  in  the  journals  told 
that  a  poet  had  died.  The  neglect,  which  had  hung 
like  a  shadow  over  his  poor  ruined  life,  brooded  like 
a  shadow  on  his  grave.  But  fortunately  for  his  fame, 
he  left  relatives  behind  him  who  were  determined  to 
set  him  right,  once  and  for  ever,  with  posterity.  To 
such  reverent  care  and  industry  we  owe  the  two 


SYDNEY  DOBELL.  203 

volumes  of  collected  verse,  the  exquisite  volume  of 
prose  memoranda,  and  lastly,  the  beautiful  Life  and 
Letters.  Thus,  although  only  a  short  period  has 
elapsed  since  Dobell's  death,  though  it  seems  only 
yesterday  that  the  poet  lay  forgotten  in  some  dark 
limbo  of  poetic  failures,  the  public  is  already  aware  of 
him  as  one  of  the  strong  men  of  his  generation, 
strong,  too,  in  the  sublimest  sense  of  goodness, 
courage,  and  all  the  old-fashioned  Christian  virtues. 
He  would  have  been  recognised,  perhaps,  sooner  or 
later,  though  I  have  my  doubts;  but  that  he  has  been 
recognised  so  soon  is  due  to  such  love  and  duty  as  are 
the  crown  and  glory  of  a  good  man's  life.  The  public 
gratitude  is  due  to  those  who  have  vindicated  him,  and 
made  impossible  all  mistakes  as  to  the  strength  of  his 
genius  and  the  beauty  of  his  character.  His  music 
was  not  for  this  generation,  his  dreams  were  not  of 
this  earth,  his  final  consecration  was  not  to  be  given 
here  below. 

Vex  not  his  ghost :  oh,  let  him  pass  !     He  hates  him  much 
That  would  upon  the  rack  of  this  rough  world 
Stretch  him  out  longer. 

But  henceforth  his  immortality  is  secure.  He  sits  by 
Shelley's  side,  in  the  loneliest  and  least  accessible 
heaven  of  Mystic  Song. 


THE  IRISH    "NATIONAL"  POET. 


ON  Wednesday,  the  28th  May,  1879,  the  citizens 
of  Dublin,  with  that  enthusiasm  which  so  distinguishes 
them  in  matters  considered  national,  celebrated  the 
centenary  of  Thomas  Moore.  The  house  where  the 
poet  was  born  was  illuminated,  perfervid  speeches 
were  delivered  by  Lord  O'Hagan  and  others,  an  ode 
from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Denis  Florence  MacCarthy  was 
recited  in  public,  a  procession  marched  to  the  tunes 
made  familiar  by  "Moore's  Melodies,"  and  Moore's 
words  were  sung  with  a  spirit  at  once  patriotic  and 
bacchanalian.  It  appeared  to  be  agreed  on  all  hands 
that  Moore  was  the  representative  poet  of  Ireland,  and 
that  he  occupied  the  same  position  in  relation  to  his 
country  as  that  filled  by  Burns  in  relation  to  Scotland, 
and  Beranger  in  relation  to  France.  If  this  be  really 
the  case,  so  much  the  worse,  in  my  opinion,  for 
Ireland  and  Irish  literature.  Thomas  Moore  was  no 
doubt  what  his  countrymen  would  term  an  "  iligant " 
poet,  and,  he  has  written  some  verses  which  go  bril- 
liantly to  music  and  are  well  adapted  to  the  atmo- 
sphere of  drawing-rooms  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  He 
evinced,  moreover,  in  his  arrangement  of  words  for  the 
exquisite  national  melodies,  a  most  refined  taste  and  a 


THE  IRISH  "NATIONAL"  POET.  205 

well-nigh  perfect  judgment.  To  have  seen  him  seated 
at  the  piano,  his  white  hands  rambling  over  the  keys, 
and  his  voice  warbling  forth  the  best  of  his  own  com- 
positions, must  have  been  a  treat  of  no  common 
order;  as  a  refined  entertainer,  indeed,  he  seems  to 
have  been  without  a  peer.  But  seen  at  last  in  the 
light  of  a  popular  apotheosis,  in  the  rosy  and  some- 
what alcoholic  glare  of  a  great  nation's  enthusiasm, 
he  seems  as  poor  a  literary  figure  as  may  well  be  con- 
ceived. Nearly  every  line  he  wrote  is  pregnant  with 
platitude  and  literary  affectations  ;  nearly  every  song 
he  sang  is  either  playfully,  or  forlornly,  or  affectedly, 
genteel ;  and  though  he  had  a  musical  ear,  he  was 
deficient  in  every  lofty  grace,  every  word-compelling 
power,  of  the  divine  poetic  gift.  Above  all,  he  lacked 
simplicity — that  one  unmistakable  gift  of  all  great 
national  poets,  from  Homer  downwards.  And  the 
cardinal  defect  of  the  verse  was  the  true  clue  to  the 
thoroughly  artificial  character  of  the  man.  Beginning 
in  early  life  as  the  friend  of  Young  Ireland,  as  the 
born  companion  of  Robert  Emmett  and  other 
martyrs  of  the  hopeless  days  of  the  Rebellion,he  ended 
as  the  adored  "  musical  wit "  of  London  drawing- 
rooms,  the  pet  of  London  publishers,  the  "  agreeable 
rattle  "  of  fashionable  literary  gatherings.  Handsome, 
agreeable,  courteous,  affable,  even  dignified,  he  lived  to 
become  the  friend  and  confidant  of  Byron,  and  most 
other  distinguished  men  of  his  age.  At  the  height  of 
his  popularity  Mr.  Murray  gave  him  a  princely  sum 
for  "  Lalla  Rookh  " — a  poem  which,  as  Hazlitt  wittily 
remarked,  "he  should  not  have  written  even  for  a 
thousand  pounds/'  There  was  a  period  when  a 
patient  public  found  poetry  in  his  "  Veiled  Prophet  of 
Khorassan,"  and  saw  pathos  in  his  episode  of  "  Para- 
dise and  the  Peri."  He  was  the  biographer  of  Lord 


206  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Edward  Fitzgerald  and  of  that  infinitely  greater  Lord 
who  died  at  Missolonghi.  Society  tittered  at  his 
epigrams,  and  politicians  delighted  in  his  political 
satires  on  behalf  of  the  Whigs.  He  dressed  well, 
went  everywhere,  knew  everybody,  and  wherever  he 
went  generally  sang  for  his  supper ;  in  a  word,  he 
was  the  parvenu  and  fine  gentleman.  If  we  compare 
this  spruce  little  courtier,  with  his  enthusiasm  of 
gentility  and  his  sham  revolutionary  sentiment,  with 
the  picture  of  Burns  in  his  exciseman's  coat,  or  that  of 
Beranger  in  his  old,  shabby  dressing-gown,  we  may 
see  at  a  glance  the  difference  between  a  playful  singer 
of  the  salons  and  a  true  poet  of  the  people. 

I  have  granted  the  merit  of  Moore's  verses 
and  the  amusing  nature  of  his  personality ;  but  I 
must  protest  in  the  name  of  justice  against  his  accept- 
ance as  the  national  poet  of  Ireland.  If  Irishmen 
accept  him  and  honour  him  as  such,  so  much  the 
worse  for  Irishmen,  since  his  falsehood  of  poetical  touch 
must  respond  to  something  false  and  unpoetical  in 
their  own  natures.  I  have  said  that  a  national  poet 
must  be  simple — Moore  was  always  ornate  in  the  bad 
sense.  Listen  to  him  when  he  is  "  patriotic  :  " 

Forget  not  the  field  where  they  perished  ; 

The  truest— the  last  of  the  brave  ! 
All  gone— and  the  bright  hope  we  cherished 

Gone  with  them,  and  quenched  in  their  grave  ! 

Or  elsewhere  when  he  cries  in  more  ringing  cadence  : 

Let  Erin  remember  the  days  of  old, 

Ere  her  faithless  sons  betrayed  her  ; 
When  Malachi  wore  the  collar  of  gold 

Which  he  won  from  the  proud  invader  ; 
When  her  Kings,  with  standards  of  green  unfurled, 

Led  the  Red  Cross  Knights  to  danger  ; 
Ere  the  emerald  gem  of  the  western  world 

Was  set  in  the  crown  of  a  stranger ! 

Compare   any  of  this   fustian  with   "  Scots  wha 


THE  IRISH  "NATIONAL"  POET.  207 

hae,"  or  the  "Marseillaise,"  or  "  Les  Gaulois  et  les 
Francs  ;  "  compare  it  even,  which  is  more  to  the  point, 
with  Curran's  "  Wearing  of  the  Green/'  or  Thomas 
Davis's  "Green  above  the  Red."  Another  cha- 
racteristic of  a  truly  national  poet  is  what  is  termed 
"  local  colour/'  Beyond  making  a  tautological  parade 
of  the  shamrock  (the  only  trefoil  he  appears  to  have 
ever  seen),  Moore  never  even  attempts  to  depict  the 
common  objects  of  the  landscape  of  his  country. 
Even  when  he  sings  of  Arranmore  he  can  only  tell  us 
of  "breezy  cliffs/'  "flowery  mazes/'  "skiffs  that 
dance  along  the  flood,"  "daylight's  parting  wing," 
and  all  the  stock  phenomena  of  the  albums.  His 
"  Vale  of  Avoca  "  might  be  situated  anywhere  be- 
tween Ireland  and  Japan;  there  are  a  thousand 
"  sweet  valleys "  where  "  dark  waters  meet,"  but 
surely  an  Irish  poet  might  have  conveyed  by  some 
felicitous  touch  or  image  that  the  waters  in  question 
met  in  the  Wicklow  Mountains  ?  As  in  his  pictures 
of  nature,  so  in  his  renderings  of  the  transports  of 
love.  Who  that  has  read  Burns'  "  Highland  Mary," 
or  Tannahill's  "Jessie,  the  Flower  o'  Dunblane,"  or 
Beranger's  "  Lisette,"  can  tolerate  the  affectations  of 
"  Come  rest  in  this  bosom,  my  own  stricken  deer,"  or 
"  Lesbia  has  a  beaming  eye  "  ?  Again,  a  national 
poet  should  be  pathetic.  The  high-water  mark  of 
Moore's  pathos  is  to  be  found  in  such  lyrics  as  "  She 
is  far  from  the  land,"  which  is  the  mere  twaddle  of  a 
keepsake  compared  with  "  Ye  banks  and  braes,"  or 
"  Adieu,  charmant  pays  de  France,"  or  (to  come  back 
to  Ireland  again)  with  Clarence  Mangan's  "Dark 
Rosaleen,"  or  Banim's  "  Soggarth  Aroon."  Lastly,  a 
national  poet  should  have  humour.  The  humour  of 
Thomas  Moore  is  not  even  good  wholesome  "blarney" 
— it  is  the  mere  fluent  persiflage  of  a  diner-out. 


208  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

The  question  which  occurs  to  me,  apropos  of  the 
present    centenary,   is    not    a    merely   literary   one. 
Criticism  has  long  ago  settled  the  poetical  rank  of 
Thomas  Moore,  and  no  amount  of  local  enthusiasm, 
no  association  of  that  delightful  melody  to  which  his 
falsest  songs  are  set,  will  alter  the  supreme  fiat  of  the 
critical   world.      But    I    cannot   help   asking   myself 
again  whether  or  not  the  choice  of  so  shallow  and 
insincere  a  poet  is  an  indication  of  shallowness  and 
insincerity  in  the  Irish  character  itself?     I  am  very 
unwilling  to  think  so.     I  would  rather  believe  that 
the  apotheosis  of  Thomas  Moore  is  the  work  of  an 
over-zealous    minority,    and   that    the   great    strong 
heart  of  the  people  has  no  real  response  for  such  a 
singer.      A  national  poet  represents   his   nation,  as 
Burns   represents    Scotland,  as    Beranger   represents 
France.     I  should  be  sorry  to   believe   that    Moore 
represents    Ireland  —  sorry,    I    mean,   for   Ireland's 
sake.       I     have    heard     Irishmen,    quite    alive    to 
Moore's  defects,  defend  his  fame  by  saying  that  he  is, 
if  not  a  great  poet,  at  any  rate  the  greatest  Ireland 
has  produced.     This  is  a  matter  of  opinion.     Judged 
by  the  voluminousness  of  his  works,  he  is  perhaps 
paramount.     But  do  not  let  us  forget  that  Ireland 
can   boast   of  such   poets   as   Thomas   Davis,   John 
Banim,    Gerald    Griffin,    Callanan,   Curran,    Samuel 
Lover,  Wolfe,  Samuel  Ferguson,  Edward  Walsh,  and 
Clarence  Mangan.     Where  in  Moore's  tinsel  poems 
shall  we  find  such  a  piece  of  wondrous  workmanship 
as  Mangan's  "  Vision  of  Connaught  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century/'  such  a  heart-rending   ballad   as  Banim's 
"  Soggarth  Aroon,"  such  a  torrent  of  native  strength 
as  Ferguson's  "  Welshmen  of  Tirawley,"  such  a  bit  of 
rollicking  vigour  as  Lysaght's  "  Sprig  of  Shillelah," 
or  such  a  thrill  of  simple  pathos  as  Gerald  Griffin's 


THE  IRISH  "NATIONAL"  POET.  209 

"  The  tie  is  broke,  my  Irish  girl  "  ?  John  Banim 
sleeps  unhonoured,  Clarence  Mangan  lies  forgotten, 
Gerald  Griffin  is  best  remembered  for  his  masterly 
piece  of  prose  fiction.  Yet  these  men  were  truly 
national  poets  ;  every  word  they  wrote  had  an  Irish 
ring,  and  their  simple  and  noble  efforts  in  Irish 
minstrelsy  have  gone  right  home  to  the  spirits  of  the 
people.  I  am  sorry  indeed  for  Ireland,  if,  with 
such  men  for  singers,  she  can  persist  in  crowning  as 
her  laureate  the  ghost  of  a  parvenu  gentleman  in 
tights  and  pumps,  who  spent  his  days  and  nights 
among  the  Whigs  in  London,  whose  patriotism  was 
an  amusing  farce,  and  who,  merely  to  make  himself 
look  interesting,  pinned  a  shamrock  to  the  buttonhole 
of  his  dress- coat,  and  warbled  cheerful  little  dirges 
about  the  sorrows  of  the  country  he  had  left  behind 
him. 


HEINE    IN   A   COURT   SUIT. 


IN  all  history  there  could  hardly  be  two  figures 
more  violently  contrasted  or  diametrically  different 
than  the  blameless  Prince  Consort  of  England  and 
the  inspired  Gnome  of  German  poetry ;  and  it  goes 
without  saying  that  the  biographer  of  the  one  was 
ill  fitted  to  become  the  translator  of  the  other.  I 
can  hardly  conceive,  therefore,  what  species  of  infatu- 
ation possessed  Mr.  Theodore  Martin  *  when  he  re- 
solved to  employ  his  leisure,  lately  so  admirably 
utilised  in  the  editing  and  preparing  dainty  docu- 
ments of  the  Court,  in  adapting  Heinrich  Heine's 
"  Poems  and  Ballads."  I  use  the  word  adapting 
advisedly,  for  when  a  Courtier,  however  refined  and 
cultivated,  tries  to  handle  a  revolutionary  Poet,  the 
result  is  certain  to  be  adaptation,  if  not  downright 
misrepresentation  and  mutilation.  As  wild  and  agile 
as  Goethe's  Flea,  as  tricksome  as  an  Elf,  as  uncertain 
and  misleading  as  a  Will-o'-the-Wisp,  gamesome  and 
lachrymose  by  turns,  by  turns  outraging  all  the  con- 
ventions and  respecting  all  the  proprieties,  now  the 
most  doleful  German  that  ever  spun  ditties  to  his 
mistress's  eyebrow,  and  again  (what  Thiers  called 
him)  the  wittiest  Frenchman  that  ever  lived,  Heine  is 

*  Now  Sir  Theodore  Martin. 


HEINE  IN  A   COURT  SUIT.  211 

the  last  spirit  in  the  world  to  rise  to  the  conjuration 
of   a  respectable  elderly  English  gentleman,  armed 
with  a  German  dictionary,  a  quill  pen,  and  an  "  ex- 
purgating "   apparatus.     He   who   poked   fun   at  all 
authorities,  human  and  superhuman,  and  was  never 
so  happy  as  when  sprinkling  crumbs  in  the  beds  of  the 
little  Kings  of  Teutonia,  would  have  shuddered  at 
the  mere  prospect  of  such  treatment.     A  large  por- 
tion, say  at  least  a  round  third,  of  Heine,  is  sheer 
naughtiness.     He  delights  in  mischief  for  mischief's 
sake.     He  pushes  irreverence  to  the  verge  of  blas- 
phemy, and  he  whips  the  galled  jade  of  sensualism, 
sometimes,  with  a  vigour  which  makes  one  quite  in 
love  with  virtue.     Yet  this  Gnome  of  impudence  and 
infidelity  was   capable   of  the   most   maudlin   Wer- 
therism.     He  could  weep  like  any  school-girl  ;  nay, 
he  would  almost  deluge  you  with  sentimental  milk 
and   water.      Curiously   enough,   this   contrariety   of 
mood  constitutes  his  literary  fascination.     We  never 
know  where  to  have  him  ;  it  is  impossible  to  predict 
his  temper  from  one  moment  to  another.     Just  as  he 
has  posed  like  a  philosopher,  just  as  he  has  touched  a 
note  worthy  of  Hegel  in  the  dumps,  a  note  planetary, 
speculative,  or  universal,  he  "  makes  a  mouth  "  like  a 
giddy  hoyden,  skips  in  the  air,  and  bursts  into  silvery 
laughter.     In  the  very  midst  of  his  shrill  laugh,  out 
comes  the  pocket-handkerchief,  and   down   fall  the 
tears.     Now  he  gibes  at  God  Himself;  anon,  he  slaps 
your  face  for  having  joined  in  the  gibe.     He  respects 
nobody,  not  even  the  reader  of  his  books.     He  intro- 
duces the  sepulchre  and  the  lupanar  as  freely  as  the 
lyre  and  the  lute,  and  he  is  equally  matter-of-fact  in 
singing   of  Herodias  with   John  the  Baptist's  head 
under  her  arm,  and  of  Hortense  dying  in  a  Parisian 
hospital.      Nothing    comes    amiss    to    him — except 

" 


212  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

obedience  to  authority.  How  should  he  admit  the 
authority  of  Morality,  when  he  repudiates  even  that 
of  Art  ?  In  the  same  spirit  which  makes  him  shock 
and  outrage  social  propriety,  he  now  and  then 
deliberately  spoils  his  own  poems,  wilfully  deter- 
mined not  to  say  the  right  thing,  just  because  criti- 
cism insists  that  it  is  the  right  thing,  and  he  ought  to 
say  it ! 

Mr.  Martin's  translations  appeared  originally  in 
Blackwood's  Magazine,  and  they  doubtless  amused 
the  old-fashioned  readers  of  that  somewhat  eccentric 
and  antique  periodical.  Now  that  they  are  collected 
together,  one  sees  more  clearly  than  ever  how  in- 
adequate they  are.  It  is  not  that  they  fail  to  repro- 
duce Heine's  wonderful  melody — that,  no  doubt,  was 
impossible ;  and  it  is  not  that  they  wilfully  misrepre- 
sent the  general  features  of  their  originals.  But  there 
is  a  half-hearted,  limping,  wooden-legged  manner 
about  their  lyrical  movement  which  is  not  rectified  by 
an  occasional  "  hop-step-and-jump "  into  metrical 
liveliness.  I  should  do  Mr.  Martin  gross  injustice, 
if  I  failed  to  recognise  the  abundant  scholarship, 
the  great  conscientiousness,  and  the  busy  earnestness, 
which  distinguish  his  work.  He  is  as  just  to  Heine 
as  he  would  be  to  a  Prince  Presumptive,  and  that  is 
saying  a  good  deal.  He  is  rigidly  fair  to  him,  even 
too  fair,  in  so  much  as  he  will  suffer  him  to  say 
nothing  unseemly.  But  somehow  the  result  is  not 
satisfactory,  and  Mr.  Martin's  book  is  no  more  like  the 
"  Buch  der  Lieder  "  than  green  cheese  is  like  the  moon, 
or  the  postures  of  a  dancing-master  like  the  leaps  of 
Oberon  on  the  starlit  sward. 

To  descend  from  general  to  specific  charges,  I 
have  first  to  complain  of  a  good  deal  of  positively 
bad  workmanship.  Take,  for  one  example,  the  first  few 


IX  A    COURT  SUIT.  213 

verses  of  the  weird  poem  beginning  in  the  original, 
"  Was  treibt  uncl  tobt  mein  tolles  Blut :  " 

What  sets  my  blood  so  mad  a-spin? 
\\"hy  burns  my  heart  with  a  tire  within? 
My  blood  //  boils,  it  foams,  it  seethes, 
And  a  ^nawin^  tlume  my  heart  enwreathes. 
My  blood  //  foams  and  seethes  so  mad, 
For  I  an  evil  dream  have  had  : 
The  Son  of  Ni^ht  came,  swart  and  grim, 
And  took  me  away  perforce  with  him. 
He  led  me  to  a  house  was  bright,  etc. 

Really,  the  "  blood  it  boils  "  at  such  a  perversion  ! 
The  awkward  repetition  of  the  pronoun  is  especially 
disagreeable  in  its  false  resemblance  to  the  idiom  of 
the  original.  Turn,  then,  to  the  rendering  of  the  poem 
beginning  "  Liebste,  sollst  mir  heute  sagen  " — a  piece 
certainly  not  in  Heine's  best  manner,  but  like  all  his 
lyrics,  full  of  verbal  felicities,  and  quite  without  any 
affectations  : 

Say,  love,  art  thou  not  a  vision — 

Speak,  for  I  to  know  am  fain — 
Such  as  summer  hours  Elysian 

Breed  within  the  poet's  brain  ? 

Nay,  a  mouth  of  such  completeness, 

Eyes  of  such  bewitching  flame, 
Girl  so  garner'd  round  with  sweetness, 

Never  did  a  poet  frame. 

Vampires,  basilisks,  chimasras, 

Dragons,  monsters,  all  the  dire 
Creatures  of  the  fable  eras, 

(  Hiicken  in  the  poet's  fire. 

But  thyself,  so  artful-artless, 

Thy  sweet  face,  thy  tender  eyes, 
With  their  looks  so  fond,  so  heartless, 

Never  poet  could  devise. 

This,  surely,  is  not  Heine,  but  our  old  friend,  Laura 
Matilda.  Who  does  not  recognise  at  once  the  cadence 
of  the  immortal 

Fluttering  spread  thy  purple  pinions, 


214  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

of  the  "  Rejected  Addresses  "  ?  In  the  German  poem 
there  is  nothing  about  "  fain  to  know,"  nothing  of  the 
poetaster's  jargon  about  "  hours  Elysian,"  a  mouth 
of  "  such  sweet  completeness,"  "a girl  garner'd round 
with  sweetness,"  or  "  all  the  dire  creatures  of  the  fable 
eras."  Heine  merely  says,  in  the  simplest  possible 
language  :  "  Dearest,  you  shall  this  day  tell  me,  are 
you  not  a  dream-picture,  such  as  in  sultry  summer 
days  fills  the  poet's  brain  ?  But  no,  such  a  little 
mouth  (Miindchen),  such  a  magic  light  of  the  eyes, 
such  a  dear,  sweet,  little  darling  (Kindchen),  was  not 
created  by  the  poet.  Basilisks  and  vampires,  dragons 
and  monsters,  such  horrible  fable-animals,  these  are 
created  by  the  poet's  flame.  But  thee  and  thy  slyness, 
thy  fair  face,  and  the  false  true  look,  were  not  created 
by  the  poet."  Words  and  meaning  are  trifling  in  the 
extreme,  and  only  perfect  simplicity  (shown,  for 
example,  in  the  charming  use  of  diminutives)  could 
make  them  endurable.  But  it  is  precisely  this  sim- 
plicity that  enables  Heine  to  produce  his  most 
miraculous  effects.  Just  imagine  the  poet  of"  Lorelei  " 
using  the  poetic  terminology  of  the  Family  Herald,  the 
verbal  splendours  of  a  young  ladies'  cardephonia,  the 
gushing  verbiage  of  Julia  Mills  !  Unfortunately, 
however,  one  cannot  imagine  it,  nor  do  I  believe  that 
any  one  will  be  able  to  do  so — even  at  Windsor. 

All  this,  perhaps,  only  amounts  to  saying  that  Mr. 
Martin's  translation  is  no  complete  representation  of 
Heine's  lyrical  achievements.  In  particular  cases  the 
rendering  is  very  good  indeed,  and  I  might  cite  the 
sterling  ballad  of  "  The  Pilgrimage  to  Kevlaar  "  as  a 
specimen  of  Mr.  Martin  at  his  best.  He  succeeds 
better  with  the  longer  ballads  than  with  the  little 
songs  ;  in  the  latter  the  poetic  spirit  is  so  volatile  and 
evanescent  as  altogether  to  evaporate  in  the  crucible 


HEINE  IN  A   COURT  SUIT.  215 

of  the  translator.  Take  the  tiny  lyric  beginning  "  Du 
liebst  mich  nicht,  du  liebst  mich  nicht,"  and  note 
the  odious  transmutation  of  the  first  line  : 

My  love  you  cannot,  cannot  brook ! 

I  don't  let  that  distress  me  ; 
So  I  but  on  thy  face  may  look, 

For  that's  enough  to  bless  me. 

You  hate,  you  hate,  you  hate  me  !  is 
Your  rosy-red  mouth's  greeting  : 

But  let  me  have  that  mouth  to  kiss, 
And  I'm  content,  my  sweeting. 

"  That's  enough  to  bless  me  "  is  a  poor  substitute  for 
<(  Bin  ich  froh  wie'n  Konig  "  ;  and  though  the  last  line 
of  all  may  be  considered  a  rather  felicitous  rendering 
of  "  So  trost  ich  mich,  mein  Kindchen,"  the  general 
effect  is  lost.  All  Mr.  Martin's  imperfections  appear 
most  strongly  marked  in  his  version  of  the  marvellous 
lyric  of  the  "  Lorelei/''  a  poem  which  for  strange 
sibylline  charm  and  sibillant  rhythm  has  never  been 
surpassed.  Here  are  two  stanzas  : 

With  a  comb  of  red  gold  she  parts  it, 
And  still  as  she  combs  it  she  sings  ; 

As  the  melody  falls  on  our  hearts,  it 
With  power  as  of  magic  stings. 

With  a  spasm  the  boatman  hears  it 

Out  there  in  his  little  skiff, 
He  sees  not  the  reef  as  he  nears  it, 

He  only  looks  up  to  the  cliff. 

The  original,  literally  translated,  is  as  follows : 

She  combs  it  with  golden  comb, 

And  sings  a  song  meanwhile  ; 
It  hath  a  wonderful, 

Powerful  melody. 

The  boatman  in  his  little  boat 

Hears  it  with  wild  pain, 
He  sees  not  the  reef, 

He  looks  only  up  to  the  cliff. 


216  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

There  is  nothing  about  a  "  red  gold  comb,"  nothing 
about  "stinging  the  heart  with  magic,"  nothing  about 
the  boatman  listening  "  with  a  spasm."  These  are 
mere  verbal  excrescences  ;  but,  alas !  for  the  music, 
for  the  liquid  lapse  of  sweet  syllables,  all  utterly  for- 
gotten or  lost !  The  reader  of  such  a  translation  as 
Mr.  Martin's  gets  no  idea  whatever  of  Heine's  magic 
gift  of  music,  but  is  set  actively  speculating  what  the 
world  can  mean  by  calling  Heine  a  great  lyrical  poet. 
It  is  still  worse,  it  is  thrice  hideous,  when  the  trans- 
lator, in  his  despair  of  simplicity,  tries  broad  Scotch. 
What  provocation  was  there  for  such  an  outbreak  as 
this  ?— 

My  bairn,  we  ance  were  bairnies, 

Wee  gamesome  bairnies  twa  ; 
We  creepit  into  the  hen-house, 

And  jookit  under  the  straw,  etc. 

If  the  original  were  written  in  anything  but  good 
genteel  German,  if  a  patois  of  any  kind  had  been  em- 
ployed, Mr.  Martin  would  have  had  a  certain  excuse. 
Heine's  ballad  tales  depend  chiefly  on  the  excellence 
of  their  story  and  on  the  quaint  originality  of  their 
manner,  which  no  translation  can  altogether  spoil. 
Anything  more  tender  and  beautiful  than  "  The  Pil- 
grimage to  Kevlaar  "  can  scarcely  be  conceived,  yet 
the  idea  is  simplicity  itself,  and  the  treatment  quite 
free  from  tricks  of  style.  It  is  curious  to  note,  by  the 
way,  how  persistently  Heine,  as  in  this  poem,  broods 
on  the  bitterness  of  life  and  the  supreme  piteousness 
of  death.  Indeed,  a  more  tautological  poet  never 
existed.  We  really  get  tired  of  his  repeated  conjura- 
tions with  a  wreath  of  roses,  a  nude  female,  and  a 
caput  mortuum,  and  his  ghosts  and  skeletons  soon  fail 
to  frighten  us.  The  one  great  theme  of  his  Muse, 
that  of  Love  uniting  the  quick  and  dead,  and  fre- 


HEINE  IN  A   COURT  SUIT.  217 

quently  waking  up  the  dead  to  join  the  quick,  is  that 
of  the  "  Danske  Viser"  and  all  kindred  groups  of 
ballads.  The  wild  and  woeful  music  made  in  the 
wonderful  ballad  of  "  Auge  und  Elsie/'  which  he  read 
in  his  youth,  seems  to  have  reverberated  in  his  brain, 
and  he  is  never  tired  of  echoing  its  theme  and  its 
cadence. 

That  cadence  and  that  theme  are  not  for  Mr. 
Theodore  Martin.  They  belong  to  the  wild  heart 
and  the  wild  mood  ;  their  region  is  the  lonely  green- 
wood and  the  dreary  sea;  and  they  are  not  to  be 
"adapted"  to  the  Court  or  the  drawing-room.  He 
who  translates  Heine  must  possess  something  of 
Heine's  nature — free,  wild,  wicked  even,  and  over 
bold. 

Heine  himself  carried  his  wickedness  to  the 
extent  of  hating  England  and  Englishmen  with  all 
his  heart.  His  cup  of  hate  would  have  been  full,  if 
he  had  lived  to  read  Mr.  Martin's  translation. 


A  TALK  WITH  GEORGE  ELIOT. 


THE  Priory,  North  Bank,  Regent's  Park,  London, 
is  a  largish,  not  uncommodious,  house,  enclosed  in  its 
own  grounds  of  about  an  acre  and  a  half,  with  trees 
and  shrubs  all  round,  a  high  front  wall  facing  the 
street,  to  which  it  communicates  through  a  massive 
doorway.  The  neighbourhood  is  quiet,  abounding  in 
the  cots  of  those  soiled  doves  who  haunt  what  have 
been  christened  (for  North  Bank  is  a  portion  of  St. 
John's  Wood)  the  shady  groves  of  the  Evangelist. 
An  actor,  Mr.  Wilson  Barrett,  now  inhabits  the 
Priory  ;  he  has  enlarged  and  altered  it  to  suit  his 
needs,  and  made  it  aesthetically  resplendent  with 
dados,  peacock-papers,  and  stained  glass  windows. 
But  in  the  old  days  when  I  haunted  it,  it  was  the 
unpretentious  abode  of  the  most  famous  woman  and 
the  cleverest  man  in  England.  "  George  Eliot " 
dwelt  there  with  her  husband,  George  Henry  Lewes ; 
she,  known  far  and  wide  as  the  bright  genius  whose 
fine  creations  in  fiction  began  with  "Adam  Bede"  ; 
he,  distinguished  in  many  ways  as  a  litterateur,  a  man 
of  science,  and  a  dilettante. 

An    afternoon    at   the  Priory,  beginning   with  a 
modest  lunch  in  the  eastern  chamber,  half  study,  half 


A    TALK   WITH  GEORGE  ELIOT.  219 

drawing-room,  and  ending  with  a  long  chat  and  tea 
in  the  pretty  drawing-room,  was  surely  a  thing  to  be 
remembered.  As  I  look  backward,  I  recall  many 
such  afternoons ;  but  one  particularly  I  remember, 
when  the  full  sunshine  of  success  and  happiness  dwelt 
in  that  little  household,  and  when,  to  ears  eager  to 
listen  to  me,  and  hearts  full  of  sympathy,  I  first  told 
the  story  of  the  life  and  death  of  David  Gray,  the 
young  Scottish  poet,  who  came  with  me  to  seek  his 
fortune  in  the  great  world  of  London,  and  on  the  very 
threshold  of  his  career  was  smitten  down  to  die  a 
lingering  death. 

Conceive  a  little,  narrow-shouldered  man  of 
between  forty  and  fifty,  with  long,  straight  hair,  a 
magnificent  forehead,  dark  yet  brilliant  eyes,  and  a 
manner  full  of  alertness  and  intellectual  grace.  This 
was  George  Lewes,  whom  Douglas  Jerrold  had  once 
stigmatised  as  "  the  ugliest  man  in  London,"  averring 
at  the  same  time,  that  he  had  caused  the  chimpanzee 
in  the  Zoological  Gardens  to  die  "  out  of  jealousy, 
because  there  existed  close  by  a  creature  more  hideous 
than  itself!"  But  George  Lewes,  though  not  an 
Adonis,  was  certainly  not  ugly.  The  great  defects  of 
his  face  were  the  coarse,  almost  sensual  mouth,  with 
its  protruding  teeth  partly  covered  by  a  bristly 
moustache,  and  the  small  retreating  chin ;  but  when 
the  face  lighted  up,  and  the  eyes  sparkled,  and  the 
mouth  began  its  eloquent  discourse,  every  imper- 
fection was  forgotten.  Conceive,  next,  the  tenth 
Muse,  or  Sibyl,  lounging  in  an  arm-chair  and  shading 
her  face  idly  with  a  hand-screen  ;  a  powerful-looking, 
middle-aged  woman,  with  a  noticeable  nose  and  chin, 
a  low  forehead,  a  fresh  complexion,  and  full  and  very 
mobile  mouth.  Dress,  on  this  occasion,  a  plainly 
cut,  tight-fitting  dress  of  blue  cashmere,  fastened  at 


220  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  throat  with  a  cameo  brooch.  This  was  "  Maw- 
rian  Evans,"  as  Carlyle  called  her,  the  George  Eliot 
of  the  novels.  She  realised  in  face  and  form  the 
description  I  afterward  gave  to  her  in  the  "  Session 
of  the  Poets  "  : 

George  Eliot  gazed  on  the  company  boldly 

With  the  limbs  of  a  sylph  and  the  head  of  John  Locke ! 

I  had  been  particularly  struck  by  her  resemblance 
to  Locke's  well-known  portrait,  engraved  as  a  frontis- 
piece to  the  famous  u  Essay."  At  that  time  her 
figure  was  graceful  to  elegance.  When  I  last  saw 
her,  shortly  before  her  husband's  death,  she  stooped 
painfully  as  she  walked,  and  wore  an  old-fashioned 
crinoline. 

"  Tell  that  story  to  the  public,  too,"  cried  Lewes, 
when  I  had  finished  my  tale.  "  Poor  fellow  !  What 
a  pity  he  ever  came  to  London  ! " 

"  Lord  Houghton  says  that  your  friend  was  very 
like  the  busts  of  Shelley,"  said  George  Eliot,  in  her 
deep  contralto  voice. 

"  Very  like,"  I  answered  ;  "  he  was  curiously 
feminine  in  form,  and  had  the  most  wonderful  eyes 
in  the  world.  Even  Tito  yonder  was  not  more  beau- 
tiful," I  added,  pointing  to  one  of  the  proof  engrav- 
ings of  Du  Maurier's  illustrations  to  "  Romola,"  which 
hung  framed  over  the  mantelpiece. 

"  I  don't  think,  by  the  way,"  observed  Lewes, 
"  that  David  Gray  can  be  classed  among  the  true 
victims  of  the  Babylonian  monster,  London  ;  at  any 
rate,  he  was  not  exactly  a  literary  struggler,  at  the 
mercy  of  what  his  countryman,  Alexander  Smith, 
called 

The  terrible  city  whose  neglect  is  death, 
Whose  smile  is  fame! 

He  was  struck  down  before  he  began  the  struggle  at 


A    TALK    WITH  GEORGE  ELIOT.  221 

all ;  indeed,  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  from  your 
description  of  him,  that  the  strumous  taint,  or  predis- 
position, was  in  him  from  birth,  and  that,  under  any 
circumstances,  his  fate  would  have  been  the  same." 

GEORGE  ELIOT—"  Quern  Di  diligunt,  etc.  After 
all,  is  not  Ganymede  to  be  envied  ?  Better  to  be 
snatched  up  suddenly  into  the  heaven  of  heavens,  in 
all  the  prime  of  youth  and  happiness,  than  to  grow 
old  in  a  world  which  is  full  of  sorrow,  and  in  which 
old  age  is  the  least  beautiful  of  human  phenomena." 

LEWES — "You  are  quite  right  there.  It  is  the 
exaggeration  of  sentiment  which  makes  the  poets 
give  old  age  a  sort  of  moral  halo.  There  is  nothing 
so  pitiful,  so  horrible,  as  the  slow  and  certain  decay 
of  the  human  faculties." 

MYSELF—"  But  is  not  that  decay  beautiful  too  ? " 

LEWES — "  Apart  from  the  pathetic  fallacy,  as 
Ruskin  calls  it,  not  at  all.  Your  favourite  Catullus 
describes  it  perfectly : 

Cana  tempus  anilitas 
Omnia  omnes  annuit  ! 

"In  other  words,  and  Scotch  ones,  'a'  nodding,  nid- 
nid-nodding' ;  a  condition,  in  short,  of  ever-increasing 
inbecility,  or  vacuity." 

GEORGE  ELIOT  (smiling) — "We  are  wandering  to- 
wards deep  waters.  But  it  is  quite  true,  I  think,  that 
the  gradual  obliteration  of  the  human  faculties  and 
senses,  one  by  one,  is  the  strongest  argument  against 
the  popular  conception  of  a  personal  immortality." 

LEWES — "  Certainly." 

GEORGE  ELIOT — "  Not  only  do  men,  under  cir- 
cumstances of  physical  decay,  become  feeble  and 
imbecile ;  when  a  moral  sense  remains,  it  frequently 
becomes  perverted.  I  have  seen  an  old  gentleman, 
hitherto  known  as  an  immaculate  and  honest  mer- 


222  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

chant,  gradually  acquire  habits  of  kleptomania,  and 
another,  well  <known  for  his  benevolence,  become 
spiteful,  almost  homicidal.  We  are  absolutely  the 
creatures  of  our  secretions.  So  true  is  this,  that  the 
slightest  disturbance  of  the  cerebral  circulation,  say  a 
temporary  congestion,  will  pervert  the  entire  stream  of 
moral  sentiment." 

MYSELF — "  All  that  is  doubtless  very  correct.  I 
hold,  nevertheless,  that  the  soul,  the  Ego,  is  invul- 
nerable, despite  all  temporary  aberrations — clouds 
obscurirrg  the  moon's  disc,  so  to  speak." 

GEORGE  ELIOT  —  "  Say  rather,  disintegrations 
within  the  very  substance  of  the  moon  itself.  Where  the 
very  substance  of  the  luminary  is  decaying,  what  hope 
is  there  for  the  permanence  of  your — moonlight  ? " 

MYSELF — "  The  analogy  is  imperfect ;  but  to  pur- 
sue it,  the  lunar  elements  remain  indestructible,  and 
after  transformations,  may  cohere  again  into  some 
splendid  identity." 

GEORGE  ELIOT—"  Moonlight  is  sunlight  reflected 
on  a  material  mirror ;  thought,  consciousness,  life 
itself,  are  conditions  dependent  on  the  physical 
medium,  and  on  the  brightness  of  the  external  en- 
vironment. Cogito,  ergo  sum  should  be  transposed 
and  altered.  Sum  materies,  ergo  cogito" 

LEWES— "And  yet,  after  all,  there  are  psychic 
phenomena  which  seem  to  evade  the  material  defini- 
tion!" 

GEORGE  ELIOT— "Not  one.  And  science  has- 
established  clearly  that,  while  functional  disturbance 
may  be  evanescent,  structural  destruction  is  absolute 
and  irremediable.  An  organism,  once  destroyed,  is 
incapable  of  resurrection." 

MYSELF — "  Then  life  is  merely  mechanism,  after 
all?" 


A    TALK   WITH  GEORGE  ELIOT.  223 

GEORGE  ELIOT— "  Undoubtedly.  It  is  very  pitiful, 
but  absolutely  true." 

LEWES — "  But  what  mechanism  !  How  wonderful, 
how  perfect  in  its  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  !  Even 
if  we  hold  thought  to  be  a  secretion,  does  that  lessen 
the  beauty  of  its  manifestations  ?  " 

MYSELF — "  Or  the  mystery  of  its  origin  ?  " 

LEWES—"  Humph." 

GEORGE  ELIOT — "The  mystery,  doubtless,  consists 
only  in  our  ignorance.  There  was  a  time,  not  very 
long  ago,  when  men  knew  nothing  of  that  marvellous 
truth,  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  In  time,  no  doubt 
we  shall  discover  the  precise  process  by  which  we 
think." 

So  speaking,  the  Sibyl  glanced,  not  without  ad- 
miration, at  her  husband,  who  was  engaged  at  that 
very  period,  as  I  knew,  in  experiments  concerning 
the  mechanism  of  thought.  He  had  long  before 
abandoned  the  metaphysicians,  as  bewildering  and 
misleading  guides,  and  had  completed,  in  the  last 
edition  of  his  "  History  of  Philosophy,"  his  survey  of 
the  progress  of  thought  from  its  past  stage  of  cre- 
dulity to  its  last  stage  of  verification.  Now,  my  sym- 
pathies were  strongly  in  the  other  direction,  tholigh  I 
had  little  or  no  enthusiasm  for  what  may  be  termed 
the  ich  and  the  nicht  ich  schools  of  metaphysics. 
So  I  shook  my  head  and  shrugged  my  shoulders, 
saying  something  to  this  effect — that  if  thought  was 
simply  mechanism,  as  they  suggested,  man  was  no 
better  than  the  "  beasts  that  perish." 

At  this  moment  there  appeared  upon  the  scene 
another  individual,  entering  quietly  through  the  draw- 
ing-room door,  which  was  partly  open.  The  new- 
comer was  a  dog,  a  splendid  bull-terrier,  who  belonged 
to  George  Eliot,  and  generally  accompanied  Lewes 


224  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

in  his  walks  about  the  neighbourhood.  He  came  in 
with  a  languid  wag  of  the  tail,  and  a  general  air  of 
importance,  glanced  patronisingly  at  me,  yawned 
lazily,  and  stretched  himself  on  the  hearthrug  at  the 
feet  of  his  mistress. 

GEORGE  ELIOT — " '  The  beasts  that  perish.'  Here 
is  somebody  who,  if  he  could  speak,  would  express  a 
strong  opinion  upon  that  subject ;  for  he  is  wise  in 
his  generation,  and  magnanimous  almost  beyond 
human  conception.  Do  you  know  what  he  did  once, 
before  he  was  given  to  us  ?  The  friend  to  whom  he 
belonged  had  a  little  boy,  who  inherited  in  full 
measure  the  predilections  of  the  archetypal  ape." 

LEWES  (parenthetically) — "The  true  and  only 
substitute  for  Plato's  archetypal  Man  ! " 

GEORGE  ELIOT — "  One  day,  our  friend  had  some 
acquaintances  to  luncheon.  As  they  sat  together 
they  were  startled  by  a  sharp  cry  of  pain  from  under- 
neath the  table ;  and  lifting  the  edge  of  the  table- 
cloth, they  saw  the  small  human  monkey  squatted  on 
the  carpet,  in  the  act  of  slitting  the  dog's  ear  with  a 
large  pair  of  scissors !  Out  crept  the  dog,  panting 
and  bleeding,  followed  by  his  little  tormentor.  Papa, 
of  course,  was  very  indignant,  and  seizing  the  child, 
who  began  to  sob  with  terror,  announced  his  inten- 
tion of  administering  condign  punishment,  which  he 
would  have  done  instantly  had  not  the  victim  inter- 
fered. Wagging  his  tail  (just  as  he  is  doing  now,  for 
he  knows  I'm  telling  about  him  !)  the  noble  fellow 
rose  up,  put  his  paws  on  the  child's  shoulders,  and 
affectionately  licked  his  face;  then  looking  at  his 
master,  said  plainly,  in  the  canine  deaf  and  dumb 
alphabet,  *  Don't  beat  him  !  please  don't !  He's  only 
an  undeveloped  human  being  ;  he  knows  no  better, 
and  —  I  love  him  ! '  Could  human  kindness  and 


A    TALK   WITH  GEORGE  ELIOT.  225 

magnanimity  go  further  ?  Yet  I  don't  suppose  you  will 
contend  that  the  poor  dog's  loving  instinct  was  enough 
to  distinguish  him  from  the  other  *  beasts  that  perish/  ' 

MYSELF — "I'm  not  sure.  Why  should  not  even  a 
dog  have  a  soul  like  any  other  respectable  Christian?" 

LEWES — "  Why  not,  indeed  !  I  have  known  many 
so-called  Christians  who  have  neither  the  amiability 
nor  the  discrimination  of  this  dog." 

GEORGE  ELIOT — "  Then  here  we  halt  on  the 
horns  of  a  dilemma.  Every  one  with  a  large  ac- 
quaintance among  decent  and  'gentleman-like'  dogs 
(as  Launce  would  put  it)  must  admit  their  share  in 
the  highest  humanities ;  and  what  is  true  of  them  is 
true,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  of  animals  generally. 
Yet  shall  we,  because  we  walk  on  our  hind  feet, 
assume  to  ourselves  only  the  privilege  of  imperisha- 
bility ?  Shall  we,  who  are  even  as  they,  though  we 
wag  our  tongues  and  not  our  tails,  demand  a  special 
Providence  and  a  selfish  salvation  ?  " 

LEWES  (laughing) — "  Buchanan,  like  all  young 
men,  is  an  optimist !  His  spiritual  scheme  embraces 
every  form  of  existence,  as  well  as  the  whole  human 
race." 

GEORGE  ELIOT— "And  why,  even,  the  whole 
human  race  ?  Go  into  the  slums  and  dens  of  the 
city,  visit  our  prisons  and  inspect  our  criminals,  not 
to  speak  of  the  inmates  of  our  lunatic  asylums  ;  and 
what  do  you  find?  Beasts  in  human  likeness,  monsters 
with  appetites  and  instincts,  often  even  the  cleverness, 
of  men  and  women.  Are  these  immortal  souls  too, 
independent  of  physical  limitations,  and  journeying  to 
an  eternal  Home?" 

MYSELF — "Certainly.  There  is  no  form  of  hu- 
manity, however  degraded,  which  is  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  moral  regeneration." 

Q 


226  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

LEWES — "  Optimism  with  a  vengeance!  Optimism 
which  leaves  out  of  sight  all  the  great  physical  factors 
of  moral  conduct — hereditary  disease,  cerebral  mal- 
formations, thought-perverting  congestions,  all  the 
endless  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  Pm  afraid,  after  all, 
that  the  dream  of  a  personal  immortality  is  a  selfish 
one.  It  would  come,  in  the  long  run,  merely  to  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  who  would  build  their  heavenly 
mansion  on  a  hecatomb  of  human  failure.  .  .  .  But 
there,  we've  talked  enough  of  things  at  present  in- 
scrutable. Come  out  into  the  garden,  and  soothe  your 
mechanism  with  a  cigar." 

We  left  the  Sibyl  to  her  meditations,  and  walked 
out  into  the  open  air.  As  we  strolled  smoking  along 
the  garden  walks,  we  heard  faintly,  as  from  a  distance, 
the  murmur  of  the  great  city. 

"Do  you  really  believe,"  I  said  presently,  "that 
the  divine  thought  of  Shakespeare  was  a  mere  se- 
cretion, and  that  the  last  word  of  Science  will  be  one 
of  sheer  negation  and  despair  ? " 

He  looked  at  me  thoughtfully,  then  watched  the 
wreaths  of  smoke  as  they  curled  from  his  mouth  up 
into  the  air. 

"  Man  is  predoomed  to  aspiration,  as  the  smoke 
flies  upward.  The  last  word  of  Science  will  not  be 
spoken  for  many  a  century  yet.  Who  can  guess  what 
it  will  be  ?  " 

NOTE. — Although  the  above  sketch  is  based  on  memoranda 
made  at  the  time,  I  do  not  give  it  as  a  literal  report  of  George 
Eliot's  words,  but  as  a  mere  transcript  from  memory  of  an 
interesting  conversation.— R.B. 


THE 
LITERATURE      OF      SPIRITUALISM. 

"POST   MORTEM"   FICTION. 


IT  has  been  suggested  by  no  less  (or  no  greater)  an 
authority  than  Sir  John  Lubbock  that  the  earliest 
ideas  of  Religion  are  distinctly  traceable  to  what 
doctors  call  dyspepsia,  and  ordinary  people  indiges- 
tion. During  the  violent  nightmares  following  a 
feast  of  "roasted  enemy,"  our  progenitors  first  saw 
hideous  shapes  in  dreams,  and  hence  began  to  sup- 
pose that  there  was  a  spiritual  world  surrounding  this 
one,  peopled  by  those  pale  ghosts  of  whom  even 
Lucretius  himself  condescended  to  give  us  a  glimpse, 
in  his  picture  of  the  twilight  region  of  Orcus  : 

Quo  neque  permanent  animae,  neque  corpora  nostra, 
Sed  quaedam  simulacra  modo  pallentia  miris. 

Sir  John's  playful  and  easy  explanation  of  the  great 
question  of  the  genesis  of  religious  impressions  is,  of 
course,  only  worthy  of  the  young  pundits  of  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  wits  who  spell  God  with  a  small 
g,  and  gladly  exchange  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment for  Holbach's  "  System  of  Nature."  One  of  the 
many  answers  to  the  explanation  is  the  simple  one 

Q  2 


228  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

that  indigestion  is  a  complaint  more  likely  to  assail  a 
city  banker  than  a  primaeval  savage.  Primitive  man, 
even  when  he  outdid  himself  cannibalistically,  in  all 
probability  slept  soundly,  in  supreme  defiance  of  the 
nightmare.  But,  although  I  am  compelled  to  reject 
Sir  John's  theory  as  an  account  of  the  dim  beginnings 
of  natural  piety,  I  hail  it  thankfully  as  supplying  a 
clue  to  the  origin  of  at  least  two-thirds  of  historical 
apparitions,  from  the  Devil  of  Luther  downwards. 
Certainly,  a  large  number  of  ghosts  are  due  to  over- 
eating or  over-drinking.  "A  slight  disorder  of  the 
stomach,"  said  Mr.  Scrooge  to  the  grim  ghost  of 
Marley,  "  makes  the  senses  cheats.  You  may  be  an 
undigested  bit  of  beef,  a  blot  of  mustard,  a  crumb  of 
cheese,  a  fragment  of  an  underdone  potatoe  ! "  It 
would  be  curious  indeed  to  inquire  how  far  excess  in 
eating  and  drinking  has  been  a  factor  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  phantom-world.  Hunger  and  whisky 
combined  must  have  created  in  many  Highland  Seers 
the  startling  phenomena  of  second  sight.  Most  Irish 
stories  of  the  "  fetches "  positively  reek  of  delirium 
tremens.  Indeed,  it  would  require  the  art  of  a  Cruik- 
shank  to  depict  the  horrors  which  imagination  can 
body  forth  under  temporary  derangements  of  the 
sensory  apparatus.  But  it  is  in  the  region  of  what  is 
known  as  Spiritualism,  in  that  dark  morass  where  the 
sad  moonshine  gleams  vapidly  through  an  eternal 
intellectual  fog,  that  I  find  Sir  John  Lubbock's 
cynical  suggestion  most  useful  as  a  light  and  a  guide. 
How  else  explain  the  existence  of  apparitions  which 
bear  the  same  relation  to  respectable,  God-fearing 
—I  had  almost  said  church-going — phantoms,  that 
pickled  pork  and  peas-pudding  do  to  wholesome 
foo<!5 

In  a  spirit  of  penitence,  clad  in  literary  sackcloth 


THE  LITERATURE   OF  SPIRITUALISM.      229 

and  ashes,  I  have  recently  been  going  through  a 
course  of  Spiritualistic  literature;  and  now,  at  its  con- 
clusion, I  feel  almost  as  dyspeptic  as  Schiller's 
"Ghost  Seer"  himself,  and  ready  to  believe  in  any 
hobgoblin  the  imminent  festivities  of  Christmas  may 
devise.  If  the  result  is  chiefly  interesting  to  a  local 
medical  practitioner,  the  spirits  are  not  to  blame  ;  for 
I  have  really  been  most  liberally  entertained.  I 
now  purpose  to  retail  to  my  readers  some  of  the 
entertainment  I  have  been  taking  wholesale.  Out 
of  a  superfluity  of  fine  things,  it  is  difficult  to  pick  a 
sample,  but  I  believe  I  shall  not  go  far  wrong  if 
I  select  a  little  work  which  might  fairly  be  entitled 
"  The  Spiritualist's  Vade  Mecum,"  but  which  appears 
with  the  less  pretentious  but  more  touching  title  of 
"Rifts  in  the  Veil."  It  is  published,  I  believe,  at  the 
office  of  the  Spiritualist  newspaper;  it  is  sumptuously 
got  up,  I  presume  under  spiritual  superintendence ; 
and  it  is,  as  the  title-page  sets  forth,  "  a  collection  of 
inspirational  poems  and  essays  given  through  various 
forms  of  mediumship,  also  of  poems  and  essays  by 
spiritualists."  A  passing  examination  of  some  of 
these  "inspirational  "  productions  may  lead  the  reader 
to  discover  the  true  nature  of  the  "inspiration  "specified, 
and  may  enable  him  to  decide  if,  after  all,  the  theory  of 
dyspepsia  is  admissible. 

"  In  the  highest  forms  of  inspiration,"  begins  the 
preface,  "the  communicating  spirit  is  supposed  to 
give  to  the  medium  in  a  supersensuous  state  the 
highest  ideas  he  can  then  assimilate;  presumably,  these 
ideas  then  flow  from  the  lips  of  the  sensitive,  but 
necessarily  somewhat  dwarfed  and  warped  by  the 
channel  through  which  they  pass,  and  by  the  limited 
powers  of  the  mortal  intellects  to  whose  receptive 
capacity  they  have  to  be  lowered  and  adapted.  The 


230  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

trance  poems  given  in  this  book,"  it  is  added,  "were, 
in  the  majority  of  cases,  taken  down  in  shorthand  from 
the  lips  of  the  sensitives,  as  the  words  were  uttered." 
The  first  specimen  of  a  "  trance  "  poem — which  must 
by  no  means  be  confounded  with  a  poem  really  "  en- 
trancing " — is  a  splendid  utterance  by  a  certain  Mr. 
Thomas  Lake  Harris,  "  now  the  head  of  a  religious 
community  in  America."  It  is  in  blank  verse,  verse 
so  blank  in  its  vague  magnificence  that  it  makes  one 
feel  tenfold  "  the  limited  power  of  the  mortal  intellect 
to  whose  receptive  capacity"  it  has  to  be  "lowered." 
Here  and  there  it  reminds  me  of  Tupper  at  his 
highest ;  more  than  once  it  soars  to  the  empyrean  of 
eloquence  occupied  by  the  Rock  newspaper.  Take 
the  concluding  passage : 

God  alone  is  great. 

He  is  the  primal  splendour  who  illumes 
The  full-orbed  intellect  ;  He  gave  the  power 
To  plan  and  execute  ;  the  work  is  His, 
Its  faults  grew  from  our  creature  fmiteness. 
Would  it  (*.*.,  the  poem)  were  worthier  of  its  origin. 
'Tis  but  a  wandering  Voice,  the  harbinger 
Of  a  great  poem  that,  Messiah-like, 
Shall  tread  down  evil  with  its  feet  of  fire, 
And  clasp  all  sufferers  to  its.  heart  of  love 
The  latchets  of  whose  shoes  it  may  not  loose. 
Five  years  will  lead  their  swift  revolving  dance 
In  choral  music  round  the  brightening  world, 
Before  that  Poem  shall  unfold  its  form, 
And  we  will  make  the  Medium  worthy  it, 
And  give  it  as  his  spiritual  powers 
Wake  from  their  slumber.     For  the  time,  farewell. 

An  unbeliever  might  wonder  why  a  "  heart  of  love  " 
should  wear  "  shoes "  with  "  latchets,"  and  an  unre- 
generate  Fortnightly  Reviewer  might  assert  that  a 
Medium  "  worthy  "  of  such  a  poem  might  readily  be 
found  in  the  platitudinous  person  of  Mr.  Chadband. 
But  I  am  not  so  ill-disposed.  What  pleases  in 
such  poetry  is  its  soothing  flow,  so  easy  to  follow,  so 


THE  LITERATURE   OF  SPIRITUALISM.      231 

innocent  of  vulgar  mystery.  So  far,  there  is  no  trace 
of  the  blue  devils,  no  suspicion  of  dyspepsia.  Ridge's 
"Food  for  Infants"  is  not  milder  than  Mr.  Harris's 
trance  poem — so  much  as  I  have  yet  quoted  of  it.  But 
Mr.  Harris  does  not  always  remain  on  the  ground  ; 
he  can  soar  when  he  likes.  In  another  specimen  of 
his  Muse,  entitled  "  The  Translation  of  Shelley  to  the 
Higher  Life,"  he  is  simply  gorgeous  in  his  cloud-com- 
pelling flights.  Here,  through  Mr.  Harris's  trance- 
mediumship,  Shelley  himself  describes  his  death  by 
drowning : 

We  had  gone  forth,  my  friend  and  I,  beguiled 
By  summer  air  and  sunshine,  and  low  tones 
Of  music  from  the  crisped  and  crested  sea. 
A  white  flaw  struck  our  barque,  and  she  went  down. 
A  gurgling,  bubbling  sound  was  in  my  ears. 
White-armed  I  dipt  with  sinewy  stroke  the  waves, 
Sank,  rose  again  and  sank,  and  rose  and  saw 
Returning  smiles  of  sunshine  on  the  sea, 
Then  left  my  languid  form  upon  the  deep, 
Borne  by  its  tides  and  rocking  to  their  swell. 

It  is  quite  useless  to  object  to  trifling  inaccuracies  of 
fact,  such  as  the  statement  that  Shelley  and  Williams, 
on  that  memorable  day,  were  "  beguiled  by  summer 
air  and  sunshine."  It  has  been  again  and  again  ex- 
plained by  Spiritualists  that  Spirits,  like  mortal 
•creatures,  are  perilously  given  to  lying.  All  I  need 
remark  here  is  the  perfectly  Shelleyan  movement  of 
this  fine  fragment.  "The  thought,"  says  Mr.  Harris, 
"  was  his  (i.e.,  Shelley's),  the  thought's  word-clothing 
mine."  So  perfectly  is  the  nude  thought  covered, 
however,  that  few  readers  will  suspect  the  existence 
of  any  thought  at  all. 

There  are  more  of  these  "trance  poems,"  and 
they  all  present  the  same  characteristics — the  fine 
tenuity  of  idea  and  beautiful  confusion  of  images  so 
suggestive  of  ghostly  musings.  I  should  like  to 


232  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

quote  "  The  Birth  of  the  Spirit,"  a  piece  given  through 
the  trance-mediumship  of  Mrs.  Cora  L.  V.  Tappan- 
Richmond,  but  it  is  too  splendid  for  a  profane  critic- 
Far  more  suitable  for  such  a  setting  is  the  following 
"  epigram,"  written,  apropos  of  the  Slade  prosecution, 
by  Mr.  Gerald  Massey  : 

The  Apostle  bade  us  "  try  the  spirits? 

And  judge  them  fairly,  on  their  merits, 

But  did  not  clear  instructions  give 

For  catching  things  so  fugitive 

As  spirits,  in  the  Lawyer's  sieve ; 

And  possibly,  he  might  retort, 

"  /  didn't  mean  at  Bow-street  Court !  " 

We  are  not  informed  whether  the  above  lines  were 
also  given  through  trance-mediumship.  If  so,  I  am 
at  a  loss  which  to  admire  most — the  poetry  of  the 
Spirits,  or  their  satire. 

So  far  I  have  proceeded,  and  have  not  yet  got 
to  the  Spirits  themselves  at  all.  I  have  seen  them 
revealed  in  their  "  inspirational "  poems  and  epigrams, 
but  that  is  only  through  a  glass,  darkly.  I  must 
still  linger  a  little  over  their  works,  while  I  direct 
attention  to  their  greatest  achievement — a  post  mortem 
work  by  Charles  Dickens.  Towards  the  close  of  1873, 
great  excitement  was  caused  in  Spiritualist  circles  by 
the  rumour  that  a  Spirit,  "  claiming  to  be  Charles 
Dickens,"  was  completing  the  unfinished  novel  of 
"  Edwin  Drood."  Inquiry  showed  that  the  rumour 
was  founded  on  fact,  and  that  the  medium — a  medium 
is  always  a  necessity  in  such  case — was  a  fore- 
man in  the  printing  office  of  the  Vermont  Recorder 
and  Farmer.  It  appears  that  the  matter  began 
through  the  instrumentality  of  Dickens  himself— that 
is,  of  Dickens's  simulacrum.  One  evening,  the  in- 
spired foreman,  at  a  stance,  wrote  a  message  addressed 
to  himself,  "  requesting  a  sitting,"  and  signed  in  a 


THE  LITERATURE   OF  SPIRITUALISM.      233 

plain,  bold  hand,  "  Charles  Dickens."  Several  other 
communications  followed,  and  at  last  one  evening  the 
medium  "  exclaimed  that  a  face  was  looking  down 
upon  him  from  one  corner  of  the  room,  with  hands 
outstretched  towards  him/'  Strangely  enough, 
though  the  others  could  see  nothing,  he  "rushed  to  the 
spot,"  and  "  appeared  to  shake  hands  (!)  with  the 
imaginary  being/'  On  his  relating  the  circumstance 
next  day  to  a  gentleman,  that  gentleman  stepped  to  a 
bookcase,  and  took  down  a  "  Life  of  Dickens,"  con- 
taining an  excellent  portrait,  and  showed  it  to  him. 
His  face,  we  are  informed,  "instantly  became  blanched, 
as  he  cried,  '  Good  God  !  that's  the  man  I  saw  last 
night !  ' " 

All  this  is  ghostly  enough  in  all  conscience,  but  it 
is  so  far  suggestive  rather  of  diablerie  than  of  dys- 
pepsia. If  we  could  suspect  a  foreman  compositor  of 
being  a  cheat  and  a  liar,  there  would  be  room  for 
strong  language,  but,  of  course,  such  a  medium  was 
impeccable.  The  upshot  briefly  was  that  Dickens 
dictated  to,  or  rather  through,  this  individual  twelve 
hundred  pages  of  manuscript,  enough  to  make  an 
octavo  volume  of  four  hundred  printed  pages.  Not 
only  did  he  do  this,  but  he  constantly  sent  brief  notes 
of  encouragement  and  good  cheer.  These  communi- 
cations have  all  been  preserved,  but  "  are  regarded  as 
of  a  private  and  personal  nature,  not  for  the  public 
eye."  Nevertheless,  the  foreman  compositor  was  per- 
mitted to  make  some  extracts.  "  We  are  doing  finely," 
wrote  Dickens  on  one  occasion.  "  You  have  no  idea 
how  much  interest  this  matter  is  exciting  here  among 
the  hosts  by  whom  I  am  surrounded.  .  .  .  When  this 
work  is  finished,  you  shall  continue  to  be  my  amanu- 
ensis. /  shall  write  more  after  this  !  "  More  astounding 
still,  the  Spirit  of  Dickens  gave  full  directions  as  to 


234  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  manner  of  procedure  to  secure  copyright,  and  on 
one  occasion  sent  this  note  : 

In  regard  to  English  publishers  :  As  soon  as  the  first  proof 
sheet  is  done,  address  a  letter  to  Sampson  Low,  Son,  and 
Marston,  Milton  House,  Ludgate  Hill,  London,  England.  It  is 
very  probable  they  will  negotiate  for  advance  sheets. — Faithfully, 
DICKENS. 

The  Spiritualists  possess  a  sort  of  club,  to  which 
ladies  are  admitted,  and  which  is  roundly  entitled 
"  The  British  National  Association  of  Spiritualists." 
The  club,  it  appears,  was  founded  "  for  the  purpose  of 
uniting  Spiritualists  of  every  variety  of  opinion  in  an 
organised  body."  Attached  to  it  is  a  library,  con- 
taining "  a  large  collection  of  the  best  works  in 
Spiritualism  and  occult  subjects,"  and  a  reading-room, 
where  Spiritualist  newspapers  and  periodicals  are 
regularly  supplied.  As  if  this  were  not  enough,  well- 
organised  stances,  to  which  "  a  limited  number  of 
inquirers  are  admitted  free  of  charge,  are  held  weekly, 
under  strict  test  conditions."  If  privacy  is  desired, 
suitable  rooms  for  seances  may  be  hired  "on  moderate 
terms/'  and  these  rooms  are  supplied  with  "  cabinets." 
Nay,  to  crown  all,  "light  refreshments" — in  the 
shape  of  the  toothsome  macaroon  and  the  stimulating 
Bath  bun  ? — "  are  provided  at  moderate  charges." 
Connected  with  this  festive  place  of  meeting  is  a 
suburban  branch,  called  the  Dalston  Association  of 
Inquirers  into  Spiritualism,  the  "weekly  experimental 
stances"  of  which,  I  understand,  "offer  favourable 
opportunities  for  the  observation  of  some  of  the  ele- 
mentary phases  of  phenomena." 

Now,  the  secretary  of  the  British  National  Asso- 
ciation is  a  Mr.  W.  H.  Harrison,  and  it  fortunately 
happens  that  this  gentleman,  in  one  of  a  series  of 
manuals,  called  "  The  Spiritualist's  Library,"  has 
given  us  what  he  calls  a  "  scientifically  accurate  "  de- 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  SPIRITUALISM.      235 

scription  of  the  sort  of  performances  which  go  on  at 
most  seances.  Seeing  that  he  has  been  in  the  habit  of 
attending  at  least  two  or  three  seances  every  week, 
41  for  the  purpose  "  (as  he  says)  "  of  gaining  practical 
knowledge  of  the  phenomena  which  take  place  in  the 
presence  of  most  celebrated  media,"  he  may  be  said  to 
speak  with  a  certain  authority.  His  first  experience 
of  Spiritualism  was  at  a  lecture  given  by  Mr.  D.  D. 
Home,  the  effect  of  which,  he  naively  remarks,  was 
simply  to  "  puzzle "  the  strangers  present.  Shortly 
afterwards,  he  called  upon  Mr.  Cromwell  Varley,  the 
secretary,  electrician,  and  engineer,  to  the  North 
Atlantic  Telegraph  Company,  and  the  first  step  to 
conversion  seems  to  have  been  taken  in  his  astonish- 
ment to  find  that  a  "secretary,  electrician,  and 
engineer,"  could  be  a  proclaimed  Spiritualist.  His 
first  seance  was  at  Mr.  Varley's  house.  The  Spirits 
gave  raps,  spelt  out  sentences  (the  first  of  which  was 
"  We  are  glad  you  are  trying  to  investigate  this 
power !  "),  and  lifted  heavy  weights.  Several  other 
seances  followed,  and  at  one  Mr.  Harrison  first  saw 
what  he  calls  "  writing  mediumship  " — in  other  words, 
Mrs.  Varley's  hand  scribbling  messages  "  under  spirit 
inspiration,"  while  the  lady  herself  was  looking  at  him 
and  talking.  But  the  crowning  experience  did  not 
come  till  his  introduction  to  the  medium  of  mediums, 
Mrs.  Mary  Marshall,  "  the  younger/'  then  residing  at 
13,  Bristol  Gardens,  Maida  Vale,  Paddington.  I 
will  give  the  beginning  of  this  stance  in  his  own 
words  : 

A  TABLE  FLOATING  UNDER  TEST  CONDITIONS. 

We  had  no  sooner  taken  our  seats  than  the  table  gave  a 
jump,  and  sent  my  note  book  and  pencil  flying  over  my 
shoulder.  The  table  then  lay  down  on  one  side,  till  its  edge 
touched  the  ground ;  it  jumped  up  again  ;  then  lay  down  on 


236  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  other  side  ;  after  which  it  began  to  rotate  upon  its  vertical 
axis,  and  to  travel  about  the  room,  jumping  now  and  then. 
This  was  startling  ;  I  could  not  see  that  our  hands  were  doing 
it,  but  I  asked  Mrs.  Marshall  whether  it  was  necessary  that 
our  hands  should  touch  the  table  at  all.  She  replied,  "  Yes,  to 
let  the  electricity  go  through,  but  the  slightest  touch  will  do." 
I  did  not  quarrel  with  her  about  the  word  "  electricity,''  but 
suggested  that  we  should  each  of  us  touch  the  table  with  the 
tip  of  the  middle  finger  only  of  each  hand,  bending  up  all  the 
other  fingers,  so  that  they  should  be  well  clear  of  its  surface. 
We  did  so.  ...  And  I  again  bent  down  to  see  if  anything 
was  touching  the  table  underneath.  Then  I  remarked,  "  Now, 
I  am  quite  satisfied  that  nothing  is  touching  the  table  except 
the  tips  of  our  six  fingers."  Directly  I  said  this,  the  table  rose 
off  the  ground  slowly  to  a  height  of  about  eighteen  inches. 
Then  it  fell  from  our  fingers,  and  was  dashed  down  on  to  the 
floor,  so  that  one  of  its  claws  was  broken  off  at  a  place  where 
the  solid  wood  was  two  or  three  inches  thick  ;  then  the  table 
turned  itself  bottom  upwards,  and  stood  rocking  upon  one  of 
its  edges,  with  its  broken  foot  moving  up  and  down  close  before 
my  face,  as  I  stood,  with  my  hands  on  my  knees,  looking  at  it. 
"  There"  said  Mrs.  Marshall,  "they  are  showing  you  the  broken 


A  little  after,  a  sheet  of  paper  and  pencil  was  put 
under  the  table,  for  the  purpose  of  producing  some 
spirit-writing.  "  All  our  hands  were  on  the  top  of 
the  table.  I  heard  a  scratch  on  the  paper  near  my 
feet,  then  the  table,  by  tilts,  signalled  out,  '  Mend  the 
pencil  !  '  '  This  being  done,  the  scratching  was  re- 
newed, lasting  about  a  minute  —  "when  the  table 
began  to  jump  about/'  which  Mrs.  Marshall  said  was 
a  signal  the  Spirits  had  finished  writing.  Mr.  Harri- 
son picked  up  the  paper,  and  found  written  upon  it, 
"  God  bless  you  !  "  The  table  next  told  him  that  he 
was  a  medium,  a  statement  he  himself  believes  to  be 
untrue.  Whether  or  not  he  expressed  his  unbelief  on 
that  occasion  I  do  not  know,  but,  at  all  events,  the 
table  lost  its  temper  !  "  I  heard  a  lumbering  noise 
behind  me,  and  on  looking  round  saw  the  great  six- 
foot  table  running  up  to  us  all  by  itself;  after  taking 
a  run  of  about  four  feet,  it  rested  with  its  edge  against 


THE  LITERATURE   OF  SPIRITUALISM.       237 

the  edge  of  the  little  table  round  which  we  were 
sitting  !  " 

At  this  memorable  stance,  Mr.  Harrison  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  most  refractory  Spirit  that  ever 
made  darkness  hideous  ;  a  truculent,  noisy,  hectoring, 
bullying  Ghost  of  the  name  of  "John  King,"  who 
announced  himself  "with  a  great  bang  which  might 
have  been  heard  in  the  street."  This  is  how  the 
ruffian  of  a  Ghost  conducted  himself: 

The  first  remark  I  ever  heard  in  the  direct  voice  from  the 
spirits  of  the  departed,  from  the  loved  ones  gone  before,  was  a 
bad  pun.  John  King  exclaimed  :  "Harrison,  don't  be  harassed" 
This  remark  was  rather  disappointing  to  one  who  supposed 
that  spirits  were  a  kind  of  archangels,  and  I  suppose  my  feelings 
exhibited  themselves  in  my  face,  for  John  King  next  remarked, 
"You  ought  to  look  upon  Spiritualism  as  a  jolly  thing.  I'm 
jolly  enough !  Look  here,  now  !  I'll  sing  you  a  song  of  my 
own  composition  : 

"  I  wish  I  had  a  bird, 
I  would  stick  it  on  a  spit " 

and  so  on  ;  I  cannot  remember  the  rest  of  the  doggerel.  I 
asked  John  King  "who  he  was,"  as  I  did  not  remember  the 
name  to  be  that  of  any  departed  relative  of  mine.  He  replied 
that  he  was  a  Welshman,  a  native  of  Carmarthen.  I  tried  tc 
get  evidence  that  he  had  some  local  knowledge  of  Carmarthen, 
as  I  knew  a  little  about  that  town,  but  could  draw  nothing 
further  out  of  him. 

On  another  occasion  John  King  recommended 
Mr.  Varley's  nephew,  who  was  in  bad  health,  to  drink 
bottled  stout,  and  being  asked,  "What  stout?"  he 
answered  promptly,  "  Guinness's."  Then,  horrible 
to  relate,  the  patient  took  hold  of  a  tube  of  papei 
which  John  King  was  "  using  as  a  speaking  tube." 
"  John  King  seized  another,  and  began  to  fence  with 
it  ;  I  could  hear  the  noise  of  the  two  tubes  striking 
against  each  other."  Then,  most  amazing  of  all,  John 
King  wrested  the  tube  from  his  adversary ;  and  then, 
proceeding  "  to  rumple  his  hair  by  rubbing  the  tubes 


238  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

over  his  head,"  remarked,  "  This  is  hair-brushing  by 
machinery"  The  imagination  which  could  invent  and 
the  impudence  which  could  perpetuate  such  a  ghost 
as  "  John  King  "  must  possess  a  strange  and  not  alto- 
gether sane  physiological  basis.  Dare  I  hint  at 
dipsomania  as  a  factor  in  John  King's  manufacture  ? 
Dare  I  suggest  that  John  is  a  distant  relation  of 
another  touching  spirit,  "  Old  Tom  "  ? 

There  is  a  sad  side  to  all  this  folly,  to  all  this 
pitiful  ignorance  and  moral  degradation.  A  number 
of  poor  human  creatures,  craving  for  light  of  some 
sort  in  the  solemn  issues  which  lie  before  them,  weak- 
ened by  illness  and  mental  trouble,  devour  the  silly 
and  saponaceous  literature  of  Spiritualism,  and  are 
ready  to  believe,  at  a  moment's  notice,  in  any  message 
from  another  world.  The  wish  is  father  to  the  thought, 
and  your  Ghost  is  already  half  manufactured  when 
the  eye  is  determined  to  behold  him.  If  it  were 
otherwise,  the  existence  of  so  much  Spiritualistic 
trash  would  be  inconceivable.  As  matters  stand,  it  is 
the  old  story  of  the  assumedly  blind  leading  the  ac- 
tually blind.  In  the  words  of  Mohammed,  often 
quoted  by  Spiritualists,  "  One  darkness  on  another 
darkness ;  when  a  man  stretcheth  forth  his  hand  he 
is  far  from  seeing  it ; "  and,  finally,  "  he  to  whom 
God  doth  not  give  light,  no  light  at  all  hath  he  ! " 


THE    MODERN    STAGE. 


i. 
NOTES    IN    1876. 

IT  is  said,  on  what  I  understand  to  be  excellent  au- 
thority, that  on  any  night  during  the  run  of  Hamlet 
at  the  Lyceum  Theatre,  the  occupants  of  stalls  and 
boxes  might  be  heard  whispering  between  the  acts 
such  queries  as — Does  Laertes  fight  Hamlet?  Is 
Ophelia  going  to  drown  herself?  Does  the  Queen 
drink  the  poison  ?  And,  does  Hamlet  succeed  his 
father  on  the  throne  of  Denmark  ?  Thus,  while  some 
gray  veteran  in  the  pit  was  scowling  at  Mr.  Irving, 
remembering  with  regret  the  days  of  Kean  and 
Macready,  and  watching  with  eager  eyes  and  ears 
for  some  blasphemous  modern  corruption  of  the 
divine  text,  the  great  bulk  of  the  intelligent  audience 
was  possibly  enjoying  Hamlet's  adventures  with  the 
same  sense  of  novelty  they  had  found  in  the  mis- 
fortunes of  the  Ticket  of  Leave  Man  and  the 
sorrows  of  Formosa — with  this  specific  additional 
enjoyment,  that  they  were  assured  on  all  hands  that 
seeing  Hamlet  was  a  very  intelligent  and  credit- 
able thing  to  do.  They  had  battened  to  the  full  on 
the  horrors  of  Mr.  Irving's  Matthias ;  they  had 
wept  for  hours  in  sympathy  with  the  sorrows  of  his 


24o  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Charles  the  Martyr ;  and  they  were  now  ready  to 
follow,  with  the  same  enthusiasm,  the  equally  interest- 
ing and  equally  unfamiliar  episodes  in  the  life  of  the 
Danish  Prince.  An  enterprising  management,  diligent 
in  studying  the  hearts  of  audiences,  encouraged  this 
disposition  to  the  full ;  the  critics  blew  their  trumpets 
till  the  welkin  rang  again;  Shakespeare  flourished, 
and  the  exchequer  of  one  theatre  at  least  was  filled. 
After  all,  it  was  no  great  drawback  to  the  general 
success  that  many  of  the  intelligent  audience  arrived 
late,  after  the  first  act,  or  farce,  was  over ;  that  some 
few  brought  with  them,  as  to  an  opera  in  some  foreign 
tongue,  a  "  correct  book  of  the  words  ; "  that  they 
evinced  a  more  or  less  decided  ignorance  of  the  "  plot," 
and  a  very  unmistakable  indifference  to  the  finer  lights 
and  shades  of  the  leading  characters  ;  that  they 
betrayed  a  very  curious  tendency  to  emphasize  by 
applause  the  good  and  novel  "  sentiments,"  as  they 
would  have  done  the  "  good  things  "  of  a  new  farcical 
piece  by  Mr.  Byron.  The  one  real  point  was  gained, 
and  a  large  number  of  blast  Londoners  flocked  to 
hear  the  new  play  of  Hamlet  with  an  eagerness  which 
seemed  highly  promising  for  the  future  of  dramatic 
art.  And  what  was  the  general  verdict?  That 
Hamlet  was  really  a  capital  play  to  see,  that  its  lead- 
ing situations  were,  at  any  rate,  equal  to  those  of 
most  dramas  of  the  day,  and  that  Mr.  Irving  acted 
the  leading  character  in  a  really  creditable  and 
diverting  manner. 

If  the  eagerness  of  these  and  similar  audiences 
meant  little  more  than  the  flush  of  a  temporary  fashion, 
having  little  or  no  connection  with  a  genuine  dramatic 
taste,  it  would  still  afford  reasonable  hope  for  a 
sanguine  critic  to  build  upon  ;  since,  by  due  cultiva- 
tion and  fresh  encouragement,  the  ephemeral  feeling 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  241 

might  be  developed  into  something  like  intelligent 
sympathy  ;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  the  eagerness  in 
question  is  rooted  far  deeper  in  the  character  and 
nature  of  the  play-going  English  public.  Ignorant  as 
London  audiences  are  of  Shakespeare's  writings,  they 
have  good  reasons  for  believing  that  Shakespeare's  plays 
surpass  most  modern  productions  in  continuous  human 
interest.  The  truth  is  that  the  public,  though  un- 
instructed,  are  not  unintelligent,  and  if  they  have 
failed  to  show  their  sympathy  with  the  highest 
dramatic  art,  it  is  because  they  have  had  few  oppor- 
tunities of  beholding  it.  So  far  as  their  knowledge 
goes,  their  taste  is  admirable,  and  their  desire  to  be 
pleased  inexhaustible.  They  like  good  strong  plays 
when  they  can  get  them,  and  they  adore  good  strong 
actors  when  they  know  them.  They  will  not  go  to 
see  Shakespeare  or  any  other  author  "  murdered ; " 
but  when  a  clever  actor  appears  in  Shakespearean 
characters,  rendering  fair  justice  to  the  spirit  and 
letter  of  the  original,  they  will  always  encourage 
him.  What  they  want,  and  what  they  might  readily 
get  if  there  were  other  managers  in  London  equal  in 
energy  to  Mr.  Irving,  is  a  dramatic  education.  Amid 
the  chaos  of  London  theatres,  blinded  by  the  flash 
of  tinsel  and  spangle,  deafened  by  the  noise  of  semi- 
nude  incapables,  they  stagger  in  moral  intoxication, 
not  knowing  whither  to  turn ;  but  no  sooner  do  they 
catch  one  glimpse  of  a  true  attraction  than  they  seem 
eager  to  support  it.  True,  they  want  to  be  humoured 
by  some  little  specific  peculiarity.  Mr.  Fechter's 
fair  wig,  Mr.  Jefferson's  catchword  about  his  "  Dog 
Schneider/'  Mr.  Robertson's  realistic  pumps  and 
tea-kettles,  Mr.  Boucicault's  great  water-jump,  have 
delighted  them  in  turn.  They  have  rushed  to  see 
Mr.  Phelps  in  gaiters  and  Mr.  Irving  in  a  fit.  They 


242  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

have  enjoyed  the  weighing-scene  in  the  Flying- 
Scud,  and  the  examination-scene  in  School.  They 
have  relished  Mr.  Toole's  grimaces  and  Mr.  Lionel 
Brought  contortions.  All  these  things,  however, 
have  been  good  in  their  way,  or  good  with  a 
qualification  ;  all  the  most  popular  entertainments, 
even  Mr.  Burnand's  burlesques,  having  had  merit  of 
one  kind  or  another ;  and  the  public,  with  its  insati- 
able appetite  for  variety  of  all  sorts,  has  done  them 
ample  justice.  It  may  dishearten  a  lover  of  the 
drama  to  observe  the  success  of  a  piece  of  sheer 
imbecility  and  vulgarity,  like  Dundreary ;  but,  in 
taking  a  bird's-eye  view  of  dramatic  affairs  for  the 
last  ten  years,  I  can  call  to  mind  few  altogether  un- 
deserved successes.  The  spectacles  of  Drury  Lane 
and  the  monstrosities  of  Mr.  Farnie  are  exceptions  to 
a  general  rule — that  plays  succeed  on  their  merits  if 
adequately  acted,  and  that  playgoers  are  not  in- 
different either  to  good  dramatists  or  good  actors  ; 
but  Drury  Lane  is  managed  under  peculiar  and 
disheartening  conditions,  while  the  stragglers  who 
support  such  a  theatre  as  the  Gaiety,  can  hardly  be 
said  to  belong  to  the  legitimate  class  of  playgoers  at 
all. 

It  is  certainly  not  my  purpose  in  the  present  paper 
to  repeat  the  old  stale  cry  about  the  decadence  of  the 
drama.  I  believe  that  people  go  to  the  theatre  now 
for  the  same  reasons  which  took  them  in  Shake- 
speare's time:  they  go,  primarily,  for  amusement; 
and,  secondly,  for  edification.  At  no  period,  I  believe, 
did  they  patronise  performances  which  were  edifying 
and  not  amusing.  In  answer  to  those  quidnuncs  who 
wish  to  apotheosize  the  drama  as  the  pedagogue  of 
virtue,  it  can  easily  be  demonstrated  that  the  drama 
never  was,  and  never  has  been,  a  direct  educational 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  243 

instrument*  Its  chief  function  is  to  entertain — to 
entertain  nobly,  if  possible,  but  certainly  to  entertain 
at  all  costs.  Far  from  us  be  the  period  when  it  is 
degraded  to  the  level  of  a  bourgeois  Academy  pre- 
sided over  by  the  British  Matron,  and  inspected  at 
regular  intervals  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain.  We  have 
had  some  pretty  specimens  of  late  of  how  govern- 
ment from  above  would  debase  and  pauperise  the 
drama.  The  virtuous  functionary  who  represents  an 
enlightened  Court,  the  leading  members  of  which 
derive  their  subtlest  theatrical  pleasures  from  the 
acting  of  coarse  comedians,  thought  fit,  in  the  in- 
terests of  respectability,  to  forbid  the  performance 
of  the  most  original  productions  of  Continental  dra- 
matic art ;  he  slammed  the  door  in  the  face  of  Dumas 
fits,  and  opened  the  door  wide  to  G&ntvtive  de 
Brabant ;  he  denied  a  hearing  to  the  Supplice  d'nnc 
Femme,  and  smiled  in  tender  commiseration  on  the 
New  Magdalen.  The  present  writer  will  certainly  not  • 
be  suspected  of  a  love  for  I'ecole  brutale,  as  a  certain 
class  of  dramatic  literature  is  called  in  Paris ;  but  he 
would  rather  see  that  school  flourish  on  every  stage 
from  London  to  Aberdeen  than  suffer  the  spokesman 
of  an  illiterate  and  irresponsible  Court,  dressed  in 
a  little  brief  authority,  to  dictate  on  what  terms  and 
under  what  restrictions  the  enjoyments  of  the  public 
are  to  be  admissible.  Such  interference  is  another 
phase  of  that  oppressive  legislation  which  appears 

*  Previous  to  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Irving  as  Hamlet,  the 
newspapers  contained  a  paragraph  stating  that  Mr.  Tennyson 
had  expressed  his  opinion  that  the  performance  at  the  Lyceum 
"would  educate  the  people  better  than  all  the  School  Boards." 
This  delicious  nonsense  actually  went  the  round  of  the  news- 
papers. A  representation  of  Hamlet  is  educational  in  pre- 
cise ratio  to  the  preparation  of  the  spectator ;  it  had  no 
more  effect  on  Mr.  Partridge  than  that  of  any  other  "  sensation" 
drama. 

R    2 


244  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

elsewhere  in  the  form  of  a  Contagious  Diseases  Act ; 
it  is  intolerable  in  itself ;  but  that  a  functionary  who 
incarnates  the  most  degraded  superstitions  of  society, 
and  who  presides,  so  to  speak,  over  the  open  inde- 
cency of  a  levee  crush,  when  the  rank  and  beauty  of 
our  land   are  transformed  like  Circe's  swine,  under 
the    ignoble    pressure    of    degraded    ambition — that 
such   a   functionary   should    play    Petronius    to    our 
pleasures  is  a  hideous  farce,  a  monstrosity,  a  scandal. 
Were  the  great  shapes  of  the  past  to  pass  before  this 
Arbiter,  how  would  they  fare  ?     Sophocles  would  be 
condemned  by  ears  too  delicate  for  calamitous  tales  of 
incest ;  even  the  marble  figure  of  "  Antigone  "  would 
awake  no  awe  in  the  heart  of  the  censor ;  and  as  for 
the  "fair  heifer"  and  other  kindred   naturalisms  of 
^Eschylus,   they  would    be   pronounced    scandalous 
beyond  measure.     No  hope  for  Euripides ;    he  has 
naked   Mcenads  in  his  train.     Still  less   for  Aristo- 
.  phanes ;  conceive  the  British  Matron's  horror  at  the 
recital  of  the  "  Ecclesiazusae  !  "     Plautus  is  too  plain, 
and  Terence  is  too  broad.     That  smiling,  elegantly- 
dressed   fellow   must   be   banished    for   ever ;  for   is 
he  not  Moliere,  and  does  he  not  carry  jauntily  in 
his  hand  the  very  utensil  used  as  a  stage  property  in 
Le  Mt'decin   Volant?     Worse  still,  not   one   of  the 
crowd  of  "mighty  magicians,"  who  wear  the  trunk 
and  doublet  of  our  golden  age,  is  fit  to  be  heard. 
Marlowe  and  Cyril  Tourneur,  Massinger  and  Shirley, 
must  begone  from  the  charmed  circle  of  this  scented 
courtling.     John  Ford  may  draw  down  "his  melan- 
choly  hat,"   for    we    remember    the    play    chastely 
rechristened   the  Brother  and  Sister ;   and    Dekkar 
may  hush  his  grim  morality,  for  the  very  name  of 
his    masterpiece    is   unmentionable    to    ears    polite. 
Shakespeare  himself  is  only  to  be  heard  on  sufferance. 


THE  MODERN  STACK.  245 

And  if  we  come  down  the  years,  seeking  for  a 
dramatist  after  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  own  heart, 
we  must  pass  by  Dryden,  smudging  with  his  careless 
finger  the  already  well-besmurged  Amphitruo  of 
Plautus,  and  uttering  in  his  very  prologues  and 
epilogues  speech  calculated  to  affright  convention 
— much,  by  the  way,  to  the  delight  of  the  King  and 
Lord  Chamberlain  for  the  time  being.  Congreve, 
Wycherly,  Vanbrugh,  Farquhar,  are  no  more  to 
be  heard  than  that  quondam  Court  favourite,  Mrs. 
Behn.  Not  until  we  find  ourselves  amongst  the 
Dresden  china  literature  of  the  age  of  Queen  Anne 
do  we  begin  to  scent  the  air  of  virtue;  but  the  air 
grows  still  purer  as  we  proceed,  until  we  find 
ourselves  inspecting  the  stainless  tragedies  of 
Mr.  Rowe,  and,  still  later,  the  virgin  pages  of 
Mr.  Sheridan  Knowles.  Unfortunately  for  the 
prospects  of  art,  we  discover  that  virtue  and 
mediocrity,  so  far  as  the  drama  is  concerned,  have 
been  synonymous,  and  that  almost  the  only  plays 
which  (to  quote  Mr.  Podsnap)  "  would  not  bring 
a  blush  to  the  cheek  of  a  young  person,"  are  pre- 
cisely the  only  plays  to  which  lovers  of  literature 
are  least  disposed  to  listen. 

In  point  of  fact,  British  playgoers  are  quite 
virtuous  enough  without  being  encouraged  to  still 
more  foolish  prejudice  by  any  official,  however 
accredited.  The  one  great  obstacle  to  anything 
like  high  dramatic  art  in  England  is  a  conspiracy 
on  the  part  of  authors,  managers,  and  actors  to 
emasculate  and  conventionalise  all  their  productions 
by  a  constant  tacit  reference  to  Mr.  Podsnap's 
"young  person."  Plays  must  be  simple  in  structure 
and  succinct  in  plot  to  suit  the  comprehension  of 
the  young  person  ;  they  must  not  touch  on  forbidden 


246  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

relationship,  nor  unnatural  crimes,  nor  glimpses  of 
morbid  psychology,  for  fear  of  shocking  the  young 
person  ;  they  must  be  modern,  for  the  young  person's 
historical  knowledge  is  limited;  and  they  must  be 
written  as  far  as  possible  in  modern  English,  for 
the  young  person  dislikes  poetical  turns  of  ex- 
pression. Any  one  reasonably  familiar  with 
that  vulgar  deus  ex  machind,  the  British  manager, 
knows  with  how  sure  a  gauge  he  professes  to  measure 
the  dislikes  of  the  typical  playgoer.  But  recent 
experience  has  shown  that  the  young  person  is  not 
the  mere  inanity  managers  imagine  her ;  that,  in 
other  words,  people  who  go  to  the  play  possess, 
with  all  their  ignorance,  a  fair  share  of  human 
enthusiasm,  and  that  a  few  touches  of  that  nature 
which  makes  all  the  world  kin  will  reconcile  them 
even  to  pretty  stiff  attacks  on  their  prejudices. 
They  had  a  prejudice  against  "  sensational  "  death- 
scenes,  which  Mr.  Irving  conquered  in  a  night. 
They  had  another  ridiculous  prejudice  in  favour 
of  "happy  endings,"  which  Mr.  W.  S.  Gilbert  has 
successfully  violated  over  and  over  again.  They 
disliked  the  "poetical"  drama,  but  Mr.  Irving 
has  taught  them  to  tolerate  it.  They  had  an 
aversion  to  "  Irish  "  pieces,  but  were  instantaneously 
converted  by  the  Colleen  Bawn.  In  a  word,  they  are 
adolescent,  ready  to  accept  any  decent  education 
the  enlightened  may  offer  them.  Education  they 
want ;  who  is  to  undertake  the  task  of  supplying 
it  to  them  ? 

The  managers  being  indifferent,  and  the  actors  at 
the  mercy  of  the  managers,  the  entire  task  of  dra- 
matic education— pace  the  critics,  of  whom  I  shall 
speak  hereafter — must  be  performed  by  the  authors. 
True,  these  gentlemen  are  themselves  greatly  at  the 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  247 

mercy  of  the  managers  ;  but  they  have  power,  and 
they  occasionally  use  it.  This  being  the  case,  it  is 
worth  while  to  consider  at  some  length  the  style  and 
pretensions  of  dramatic  productions ;  and,  indeed,  to 
do  this,  while  adding  some  final  suggestions  as  to  how 
the  cause  of  dramatic  art  may  be  advanced,  is  the 
main  purpose  of  the  present  article. 

Place  aux  dames !  First  let  us  see  what  the 
so-called  poetical  Muse  has  done  for  us  of  late  in 
England.  It  is  now  many  long  years  since  the  Lady 
of  Lyons  first  made  the  theatrical  fortune  of  its  author, 
and  it  still  remains  at  the  head  of  modern  romantic 
dramas  ;  not  on  account  of  its  writing,  which  is  vapid 
in  the  extreme,  but  by  virtue  of  an  entertaining 
subject  and  excellent  construction.  Worthless  as 
literature,  worthless  even  as  a  vehicle  for  good  acting, 
it  holds  its  place  on  the  stage  as  a  thoroughly  com- 
monplace and  interesting  play.  "You  are  just  the 
author  for  a  Lady  of  Lyons!'  wrote  a  London  manager 
recently  to  a  living  author  ;  "  write  me  such  a  piece 
and  there  is  a  small  fortune  for  you — and  yours 
truly;"  but  the  person  addressed,  unfortunately,  did 
not  think  himself  just  the  author  for  a  Lady  of  Lyons. 
Of  the  same  date  as  Lord  Lytton's  dramas  are  those 
of  Sheridan  Knowles;  of  these  only  the  Hunchback 
and  the  Love  Chase  retain  any  firm  hold  of  the  stage. 
Unlike  Lord  Lytton,  who  succeeded  by  virtue  of  a 
compact  and  well-welded  plot,  Knowles  got  his 
effects  from  consummate  command  of  verbiage  and  a 
masterly  power  of  creating  stage  situations,  not  as 
part  of  a  well-conceived  whole,  but  from  scene  to 
scene.  His  characters  are  simply  marionettes,  ad- 
mirably dressed  and  excellently  managed.  Their 
speech  is  wondrous.  Listening  to  its  endless  inter- 
jections and  repetitions,  to  its  extraordinary  flatulence 


248-  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

of  phrase  and  epithet,  as  uttered  on  the  stage,  one 
becomes  so  bewildered  as  almost  to  fancy  one  is 
listening  to  words  of  power,  not  sounds  of  fury  signi- 
fying nothing.  Knowles  is  the  Chadband  of  dra- 
matists, the  Moody  of  the  defunct  classical  school. 
His  vigour  in  saying  and  meaning  nothing  amounts 
to  genius,  his  skill  in  devising  and  connecting  dia- 
logues without  a  purpose,  and  yet  apparently  full 
of  purpose,  is  fairly  astounding.  The  following  pas- 
sage from  the  Hunchback,  is  a  fair  sample  of  the 
author  at  his  best : 


Enter  JULIA  and  HELEN. 

Helen.     I  like  not,  Julia,  this  your  country  life. 
I'm  weary  on't. 

Julia.  Indeed  ?     So  am  not  I  ; 

I  know  no  other  ;  would  no  other  know. 

Helen.     You  would  no  other  know  ?    Would  you  not  know 
Another  relative — another  friend — 
Another  house — another  anything, 
Because  the  ones  you  have  already  please  you  ? 
That's  poor  content.     Would  you  not  be  more  rich, 
More  wise,  more  fair  ?    The  song  that  last  you  learned 
You  fancy  well ;  and  therefore  shall  you  learn 
No  other  song  ?    Your  virginal,  'tis  true, 
Hath  a  sweet  tone  ;  but  does  it  follow  thence 
You  shall  not  have  another  virginal  ? 
You  may,  love,  and  a  sweeter  one  ;  and  so 
A  sweeter  life  may  find,  than  this  you  lead  ! 

Julia.     I  seek  it  not.     Helen,  I'm  constancy  ! 

Helen.     So  is  a  cat,  a  dog,  a  silly  hen, 
An  owl,  a  bat — where  they  are  wont  to  lodge 
They  still  sojourn,  nor  care  to  shift  their  quarters. 
Thou'rt  constancy  ?     I'm  glad  I  know  thy  name  ! 
The  spider  comes  of  the  same  family, 
That  in  his  meshy  fortress  spends  his  life, 
Unless  you  pull  it  down  and  scare  him  from  it. 
And  so  thou'rt  constancy  ?    Art  proud  of  that  ? 
I'll  warrant  thee,  I'll  match  thee  with  a  snail, 
From  year  to  year  that  never  leaves  his  house ! 
Such  constancy,  forsooth  !  a  constant  grub 
That  houses  ever  in  the  self-same  nut 
Where  he  was  born,  till  hunger  drives  him  out. 
And  so  in  very  deed  thou'rt  constancy  ! 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  249 

Julia.     Helen,  you  know  the  adage  of  the  tree  :— 
I've  ta'en  the  bend.     This  rural  life  of  mine, 
Enjoined  me  by  an  unknown  father's  will, 
I've  led  from  infancy.     Debarr'd  from  hope 
Of  change,  I  ne'er  have  sighed  for  change.     The  town 
To  me  was  like  the  moon,  for  any  thought 
I  e'er  should  visit  it — nor  was  I  school'd 
To  think  it  half  so  fair. 

Helen.  Not  half  so  fair  ! 

The  town's  the  sun,  and  thou  hast  dwelt  in  night 
E'er  since  thy  birth,  not  to  have  seen  the  town ! 
Their  women  there  are  queens,  and  kings  their  men, 
Their  houses  palaces. 

Julia.  And  what  of  that  ? 

Have  your  town  palaces  a  hall  like  this  ? 
Couches  so  fragrant  ?  walls  so  high  adorned  ? 
Casements  with  such  festoons,  such  prospects,  Helen, 
As  these  fair  vistas  have  ?     Your  kings  and  queens  ! 
See  me  a  May-day  queen  and  talk  of  them  ! 

Helen.    Extremes  are  ever  neighbours.     JTis  a  step 
From  one  of  the  other. 


Of  course,  the  less  said  of  such  very  blank  verse 
the  better,  for  the  author  did  not  pretend  to  be  a 
poet.  His  moral  sentiments  are  on  a  level  with  his 
dialogue,  and  the  occasional  glimpses  of  good  honest 
talent  which  Knowles  undoubtedly  possessed,  are 
always  spoiled  by  some  ridiculous  false  note.  The 
following  little  speech  has  merits,  from  a  stagey 
point  of  view,  despite  its  resemblance  to  a  speech 
of  Jacques: 


Waller.     Well,  Master  Wildrake,  speak  you  of  the  chase? 
To  hear  you  one  doth  feel  the  bounding  steed  ; 
You  bring  the  hounds,  and  game,  and  all  to  view — 
All  scudding  to  the  jovial  huntsman's  cheer  ! 
And  yet  I  pity  the  poor  crowned  deer, 
And  always  fancy  'tis  by  fortune's  spite, 
That  lordly  head  of  his  he  bears  so  high — 
Like  Virtue,  stately  in  calamity, 
And  hunted  by  the  human,  worldly  hound — 
Is  made  to  fly  before  the  pack,  that  straight 
Burst  into  song  at  prospect  of  his  death. 
You  say  their  cry  is  harmony,  and  yet 


250  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

The  chorus  scarce  is  music  to  my  ear, 
When  I  bethink  me  what  it  sounds  to  his ; 
Nor  deem  I  sweet  the  note  that  rings  the  knell 
Of  the  once  merry  forester  ! 

But  no  sooner  has  Master  Waller  struck  the 
natural  note,  than  another  speaker,  Master  Neville, 
interposes  a  note  of  moral  philosophy. 

Nev.  The  same  things 

Do  please  or  pain — according  to  the  thought 
We  take  of  them  ' 

Gems  of  this  precious  kind  abound  in  Sheridan 
Knowles.  Despite  all  his  faults,  he  understood  stage 
language  thoroughly,  and  he  was  so  well  read  in  the 
literature  of  our  best  period,  that  he  would  have  been 
a  truly  admirable  writer  if  he  had  possessed  ideas  in 
proportion  to  his  command  of  language. 

Though  Dr.  Westland  Marston  is  still  living,  his 
plays  may  almost  be  said  to  belong  to  the  last 
generation.  He  does  not  attempt  to  compete  with 
younger  writers,  and  the  only  recent  productions 
of  his  pen  have  been  some  capital  little  comedies  for 
Mr.  Sothern.  His  first  play,  the  Patrician's  Daughter, 
was  produced  in  1842,  five  years  after  the  production 
of  the  Love  Chase ;  and  since  then  he  has  written 
five  or  six  high-class  plays.  He  possesses  a  true 
poetical  instinct,  which  saves  him,  to  a  great  extent, 
from  the  absurdities  of  that  school  of  which  he  is  the 
contemporary.  His  dialogue  is  bright  and  clever,  his 
situations  highly  picturesque.  He  is  deficient,  how- 
ever, in  constructing  power  and  sense  of  theatrical 
situation,  and  his  dramas,  therefore,  have  only  been 
moderately  successful  when  acted.  Their  value  as 
literature  has  yet  to  be  determined,  and  lovers  of  the 
drama  will  see  with  pleasure  the  announcement  that 
they  are  now  procurable  in  a  collected  form. 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  251 

The  name  of  Mr.  Wills  is  now  familiar  to  the 
public  in  its  connection  with  the  successes  of  Mr. 
Irving,  but  it  has  long  been  known  to  critics  as  that 
of  an  exceedingly  clever,  though  undoubtedly  care- 
less, writer  of  plays.  In  a  sort  of  collaboration  with 
Mr.  Vezin,  who  translated  the  German  originals  or 
"bases,"  Mr.  Wills  has  written  the  Man  oy  Airlie, 
and  Hinko,  the  first  a  really  beautiful  study  of  a 
poet's  life  and  fate,  the  second  a  romantic  drama  of  a 
school  made  popular  by  Kotzebue.  The  striking 
scene  in  the  first-named  play,  where  the  senile  poet, 
who  is  supposed  to  be  dead,  appears  among  the  gay 
company  assembled  to  uncover  his  own  statue,  belongs 
entirely  to  Mr.  Wills,  and  is  alone  enough  to  prove 
him  a  dramatist  of  a  high  order.  Unfortunately, 
his  language  is  never  on  a  level  with  his  concep- 
tions ;  it  is  seldom  as  strong  and  nervous  as  a  little 
more  care  might  make  it.  In  the  drama  of  Charles 
the  First,  Mr.  Wills  appeared  to  advantage  neither  as 
a  poet  nor  as  a  politician.  The  picture  of  Cromwell 
(outrageously  represented,  by  the  way,  by  a  comic 
actor  [named  Belmore)  is  without  an  excuse  or  a 
parallel ;  while  that  of  the  royal  martyr  is  like  a  very 
mild  piece  in  crayon  by  Richmond.  Thanks  chiefly 
to  the  easy  grace  and  truly  natural  manner  of  Mr. 
Irving,  even  such  scenes  as  this  were  listened  to  with 
toleration  : 

Huntley.     I  long  have  hoped  to  be  an  humble  instrument 
Of  aid  and  comfort  to  your  Majesty. 
To  show  you  something  more  than  blind  devotion. 
To  this  end  I  have  compass'd  the  acquaintance 
And  conversation  of  one  Master  Cromwell, 
A  leader  in  the  Commons,  and  yet  liberal. 

King.     I  know  him  by  report  :  a  shrewd,  strong  gentleman, 
Whose  shrewdness  and  whose  strength,  methinks,  are  venal 

Huntley.     In  that  your  Majesty  may  do  him  wrong. 
But  be  that  as  it  may,  I  do  profess 


252  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

I  come  not  an  officious  go-between, 
But  as  an  indirect  and  easy  medium. 

King.     I  cannot  say  thy  visit  is  more  welcome. 
What  then  ? 

Huntley.     Shall  I  bear  back  to  Master  Cromwell 
The  spirit  of  your  Majesty's  reply  ? 

King.     Saint  George  forbid  !     Henry,  of  lusty  memory, 
Thy  reign  was  set  in  happier  days  than  mine. 
Sooth,  when  thine  anger  flashed,  thy  thunderous  voice 
Announced  it  roundly.     Huntley,  we  must  temporize— 
Thou  hast  not  come  as  an  official  here, 
And  so  thy  message  back  commits  us  not. 
Stay  !     Prithee  tell  them — nay,  let's  see— let's  see. 

Huntley.     Under  your  favour — 

King.     Nay,  under  yours — I  do  bethink  me  now ; — 
Thou  shouldst  have  told  me  earlier  in  our  talk. 
Say  that  the  King  repents  his  hasty  act ; 
So  we  avoid  that  first  rash  burst  of  blame, 
Which  sudden  measures,  howsoever  wholesome, 
Provoke  in  England. 
Let  the  five  members  sit  as  heretofore 
(Our  charges  shall  be  laid  most  formally) 
And  let  them  bide  the  verdict  of  their  peers. 
As  for  their  late  remonstrance — tell  my  Commons 
It  is  before  us,  and  shall  be  considered 
Most  anxiously,  and,  point  by  point,  discussed. 
Some  we  shall  cede  at  once,  in  other  some 
We  shall  require  their  counsel  and  review,  etc. 

But  Mr.  Irving  in  armour  (Act  iii.),  resembling 
nothing  more  than  the  "  Knight  of  the  Rueful  Visage," 
clad  in  a  tin  meat-jack,  would  have  appeared  comical 
to  any  audience  less  disposed  to  applaud  the  royal 
prerogative  at  all  hazards.  On  the  occasion  of  my 
visit  to  the  Lyceum,  the  audience  appeared  to  shed 
tears  plentifully  ;  but  the  situation  was  certainly  only 
saved  by  the  nervous  energy  of  the  popular  young 
actor.  A  piece  of  higher  calibre,  Eugene  Aram> 
showed  Mr.  Wills  at  his  very  best.  No  other  living 
playwright  could  have  produced,  out  of  elements  so 
simple,  a  success  so  genuine  and  unmistakable.  Since 
Eugene  Aram  Mr.  Wills  has  written  a  tragedy  on 
the  subject  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots ;  but  as  it  was 


THE  MODERN  STAC,  253 

played,  unfortunately,  by  people  ignorant  of  the 
merest  rudiments  of  acting,  and  has  not  been  pub- 
lished, it  is  not  easy  to  decide  on  its  merits.  One 
thing,  however,  is  certain,  that  Mr.  Wills  seems  to 
have  some  special  delusions  about  Puritanism  and 
Puritan  leaders,  for  if  anything  could  surpass  his 
wonderful  picture  of  Cromwell,  it  would  be  his  de- 
licious caricature  of  John  Knox.  The  beautiful  Mr. 
Rousby  as  Knox  was  a  phenomenon  to  make  the 
ghost  of  George  Buchanan  rise  from  the  grave,  and  to 
darken  the  declining  years  of  Mr.  Carlyle. 

Worthy  to  rank  with  Mr.  Wills  as  a  poetical 
dramatist,  is  Mr.  Tom  Taylor,*  who  is  at  once  the 
most  successful  writer  of  his  class,  with  only  one 
exception,  and  the  bete  noir  of  a  large  clique  of  critics. 
Mr.  Taylor  is  less  original,  but  more  diverse — less 
happy,  but  more  careful,  than  Mr.  Wills  ;  and  his 
dialogue,  though  bald  like  most  modern  dialogue,  is 
more  apt  and  to  the  purpose.  I  am  certainly  not 
among  those  gentlemen  who  deny  Mr.  Taylor  the 
merit  of  originality  ;  on  the  contrary,  I  believe  his 
talents  are  underrated,  simply  because  a  foolish  and 
erroneous  idea  has  been  circulated  as  to  his  indebted- 
ness to  foreign  sources.  To  my  mind  he  has  seldom 
or  never  exceeded  the  allowable  privileges  of  a  drama- 
tist, and  almost  all  his  success  is  due  to  dramatic 
faculties  and  instincts  entirely  his  own.  He  is  the 
author  of  some  of  the  very  brightest  pieces  of  the  day, 
and  if  in  his  historical  and  poetical  productions  he 
has  failed  to  maintain  a  high  level  of  literary  excel- 
lence, he  has  merely  failed  in  common  with  almost 
all  caterers  for  the  modern  stage.  The  Fool's 
Revenge  is,  on  the  whole,  his  best  serious  play,  and 
worthy  of  the  translator  of  the  Barsaz-Brciz.  It 
is,  to  a  certain  extent,  similar  in  subject  to  the  opera 
*  Since  deceased. 


254  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

of  Rigoletto  and  the  play  of  Le  Roi  J amuse. 
In  most  of  its  merits,  however,  it  is  Mr.  Taylor's  own, 
while  its  defects  are  just  what  might  have  been 
expected  from  one  who,  with  all  his  talents,  shows  a 
sneaking  regard  for  Mr.  Podsnap's  young  person  ; 
and  thus  we  are  treated  to  a  moral  denouement  setting 
forth  the  prerogatives  of  Providence  and  the  naughti- 
ness of  revenge. 

Vengeance  is  not  man's  attribute  but  heaven's  ! 
I  have  usurped  it ! 

cries  Bertuccio,  "  hiding  his  face  in  his  hands/'  The 
piece  trespasses  on  the  borders  of  forbidden  ground, 
but  the  danger  is  delicately  avoided.  The  character 
of  the  Jester  (admirably  embodied  at  Sadler's  Wells 
by  Mr.  Phelps)  is  cleverly  worked  out,  through  a 
series  of  nervous  situations.  The  writing  is  on  the 
whole  excellent ;  the  dialogue,  though  without 
imagery,  being  strong,  pointed,  and  incisive.  If 
faults  are  to  be  found  in  a  really  meritorious  work, 
one  may  observe  that  Mr.  Taylor  is  too  consciously 
theatrical.  Take  the  following  little  scene,  which 
pleased  the  audience  greatly : 

[BERTUCCIO  stands  for  a  moment  fondly  contemplating  FIOR- 
DELISA.  His  dress  is  sober  and  his  manner  composed.  He 
steps  quietly  forward. 

Bert.     My  own ! 

Fiord,  (turning  suddenly  and  flinging  herself  into  his  arms 
with  a  cry  of  joy].    My  father  ! 

Bert,  (embracing  her  tenderly).     Closer,  closer  yet ! 
Let  me  feel  those  soft  arms  about  my  neck, 
This  dear  cheek  on  my  heart !     No — do  not  stir — 
It  does  me  so  much  good  !  I  am  so  happy — 
These  minutes  are  worth  years  ! 

Fiord.  My  own  dear  father  ! 

Bert.     Let  me  look  at  thee,  darling— why,  thou  growest 
More  and  more  beautiful !     Tktntrt  happy  here  ? 
Hast  all  that  thou  desirest — thy  lute — thy  flowers  ? 
She  loves  her  poor  old  father  ?     Blessings  on  thee, 
I  know  thou  dost — but  tell  me  so. 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  255 

Fiord.  I  love  you — 

I  love  you  very  much  !     I  am  so  happy 
When  you  are  with  me-  Why  do  you  come  so  late, 
And  %o  so  soon  ?     Why  not  stay  always  here  ? 

fieri.     Why  not  ?  Why  not  ?     Oh,  if  I  could  !     To  live 
Where  there's  no  mocking,  and  no  being  mocked  ; 
No  laughter,  but  what's  innocent  ;  no  mirth 
That  leaves  an  after-bitterness  like  gall. 

Fiord.     Now,  you  are  sad  !     There's  that  black  ugly  cloud 
Upon  your  brow — you  promised,  the  last  time, 
It  never  should  come  when  we  were  together. 
You  know  when  you're  sad  Pm  sad  too. 

Bert.  My  bird  ! 

I'm  selfish  even  with  thee — let  dark  thoughts  come, 
That  thy  sweet  voice  may  chase  them,  as  they  say 
The  blessed  church-bells  drive  the  demons  off. 

Fiord.     If  I  but  knew  the  reason  of  your  sadness, 
Then  I  might  comfort  you  ;  but  I  know  nothing. 
Not  even  your  name. 

Bert.  I  have  no  name  for  thee 

But  "  Father.'1 

Fiord.     In  the  convent  at  Cesena 
Where  I  was  reared,  tJicy  used  to  call  me  orphan. 
I  thought  I  had  no  father,  till  you  came, 
And  then  they  needed  not  to  say  I  had  one  ; 
My  own  heart  told  me  that. 


Now  it  is,  perhaps,  superfluous  to  point  out  the 
gushing  unnaturalness  of  this  meeting  between  a 
father  and  daughter  on  a  commonplace  occasion.  It 
might  pass  very  well  if  the  two  had  been  separated 
for  years,  but  they  meet  frequently,  and  hysterics  are 
absurd.  It  is  necessary,  however,  to  recapitulate  the 
nature  of  their  relationship,  for  the  edification  of  the 
audience,  and  so  in  the  italicised  lines,  with  a  far 
too  obvious  side-glance  at  the  spectators,  the  dialogue 
is  studded  with  explanations.  Faults  of  this  sort 
disfigure  too  much  of  Mr.  Taylor's  work,  and  show 
too  plainly  that  he  approaches  his  subject  more  as 
a  playwright  than  as  a  dramatist.  There  is  a  want 
of  fusion  in  some  of  his  conceptions,  and  a  theatrical 
tawdriness  in  some  of  his  designs.  With  all  this,  he 


256  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

has  done  the  stage  good  service,  and  is  certainly  one 
of  the  leading  theatrical  authors  of  the  day. 

With  the  names  already  cited,  the  list  of  pseudo- 
poetical  writers  may  cease.  True,  Mr.  Albery  has 
written  a  play  in  blank  verse,  in  which  the  critics 
discovered  original  beauties,  but  his  real  talents  lie 
in  quite  another  direction.  A  word  of  praise,  how- 
ever, may  [be  given  en  passant  to  Mr.  Hermann 
Merivale,  who  has  made  a  very  fair  acting  play  out 
of  Le  Lion  Amoureux  of  Ponsard,  carefully  avoiding 
the  stilted  style  of  that  leader  of  the  classic  revival. 
Mr.  Merivale  has  also  written  the  White  Pilgrim,  a 
sort  of  poem  for  the  stage,  which  failed  as  much  by 
vile  acting  as  by  want  of  dramatic  fibre.  His  pro- 
ductions have  been  few,  but  they  encourage  one  to 
hope  that  he  may  take  a  leading  place  among 
contemporary  dramatists. 

Turning  from  the  poetical  drama,  which  is  after 
all  not  poetical  essentially,  but  rather  a  form  of 
writing  in  which  blank  verse  is  used  because  great 
dramatists  used  it  once  on  a  time,  we  come  to  a 
writer  who  is  perhaps  more  original  than  any  we 
have  named,  and  who  also  at  times  uses  a  sort  of 
monstr-inform-ingens-horrendous  style  of  writing, 
which  is  supposed  to  be  blank  verse.  Critics  have 
even  gone  to  the  length  of  calling  his  plays  poetical, 
and  of  actually  selecting  poetic  gems  from  their 
pages  ;  but  it  would  surprise  me  greatly  to  hear  that 
he  ever  wrote  a  poetical  line  in  his  life.  Mr.  W.  S. 
Gilbert,  for  it  is  he  of  whom  I  am  speaking,  is  the 
greatest  living  writer  of  burlesques — not  mere  sense- 
less inanities,  composed  of  vulgar  slang  and  break- 
downs— but  really  first-rate  comic  productions,  with 
an  occasional  touch  of  serious  import.  He  began  his 
literary  career  with  the  "  Bab  Ballads,"  maniac  rhymes 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  257 

of  perfect  and  convulsing  originality,  and  he  after- 
wards contributed  to  the  vulgar  burlesque  literature  of 
the  day  such  absurdities  as  Dulcamara-,  or,  the  Little 
Duck  and  the  Great  Quack.  His  first  genuine  burlesque 
was  the  Princess,  founded  on  Mr.  Tennyson's  pretty 
poem  of  that  name;  quaint  in  design,  and  clever  in 
treatment.  But  in  Pygmalion  and  Galatea,  called  a 
mythological  comedy,  and  produced  with  conspicuous 
success  at  the  Haymarket  Theatre,  he  shows  his 
talents  at  their  very  best.  The  myth  of  Pygmalion 
is  a  poetical  one,  and  has  been  treated  previously  by 
our  own  Marston  ;  but  it  remained  for  Mr.  Gilbert  to 
turn  it  into  a  first-class  burlesque  of  the  serious 
school.  In  his  version,  the  statue,  when  brought  to 
life,  becomes  a  burden  and  a  misery  to  its  creator, 
and  its  perfect  innocence  and  artlessness  are  made 
the  cause  of  many  diverting  situations.  The  treat- 
ment is  a  vulgarising  one,  but  has  its  merits ;  for 
while  all  the  subtle  loveliness  of  the  primary  idea  is 
brutally  destroyed,  a  good  deal  of  strong  satiric 
matter  is  gained.  These  are  Galatea's  reflections 
on  first  emerging  from  the  stone : 

Galatea.     Then  is  this  life  ? 

Pygmalion.  It  is. 

Gal.  And  not  long  since 

I  was  a  cold,  dull  stone.     I  recollect 
That  by  some  means  I  knew  that  I  was  stone, 
That  was  the  first  dull  gleam  of  conscience  ; 
I  became  conscious  of  a  chilly  self, 
A  cold  immovable  identity, 
I  knew  that  I  was  stone,  and  knew  no  more  ; 
Then,  by  an  imperceptible  advance, 
Came  the  dim  evidence  of  outer  things, 
Seen — darkly  and  imperfectly — yet  seen — 
The  walls  surrounded  me,  and  1,  alone, 
That  pedestal — that  curtain — then  a  voice 
That  called  on  Galatea !     At  that  word, 
Which  seemed  to  shake  my  marble  to  the  core, 
That  which  was  dim  before,  came  evident. 

S 


258  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Sounds,  that  had  hummed  around  me,  indistinct, 
Vague,  meaningless — seemed  to  resolve  themselves 
Into  a  language  I  could  understand  ; 
I  felt  my  frame  pervaded  with  a  glow 
That  seemed  to  thaw  my  marble  into  flesh  ; 
Its  cold  hard  substance  throbbed  with  active  life, 
My  limbs  grew  supple,  and  I  moved — I  lived  ! 
Lived  in  the  ecstasy  of  new-born  life  ; 
Lived  in  the  love  of  him  that  fashioned  me  ; 
Lived  in  a  thousand  tangled  thoughts  of  hope, 
Love,  gratitude,  thoughts  that  resolved  themselves 
Into  one  word,  that  word  Pygmalion  !  (kneels  to  him}. 

Pyg.     I  have  no  words  to  tell  thee  of  my  joy, 
O  woman — perfect  in  thy  loveliness. 

Gal.    What  is  that  word  ?    Am  I  a  woman  ? 

Pyg.  Yes. 

Here  is  a  dim  gleam  of  what  might  have  been  a 
fine  passage,  but  fine  passages  are  not  in  Mr.  Gilbert's 
line.  Galatea  immediately  demands,  "Am  I  a  woman?" 
When  Pygmalion  replies,  "Yes,"  she  returns,  "Art 
tkou  a  woman  ? "  and  the  house  begins  to  titter.  The 
ball  now  begins  rolling.  Galatea  asks,  "What  is  a 
man?"  and  being  answered  that  man  is  a  being 
framed  to  protect  woman,  work  and  toil  for  her,  fight 
and  die  for  her,  observes  quietly,  "  Fm  glad  I  am  a 
woman."  "  So  am  I  ! "  Pygmalion  responds ;  and 
the  house  titters  again.  So  fascinated  is  the  author 
by  these  subtle  touches,  that  he  repeats  them,  and 
when  Galatea,  observing  her  beauty  in  a  mirror, 
exclaims,  "  So  Fm  a  woman ! "  Pygmalion,  to  the 
intense  delight  of  the  audience,  exclaims,  "  No  doubt 
of  that !  "  She  continues  : 

Gal.    O  happy  maid,  to  be  so  passing  fair  ! 
And  happier  still  Pygmalion,  who  can  gaze 
At  will  upon  so  beautiful  a  face. 

Pyg.     Hush  !    Galatea — in  thine  innocence   (taking  glass 

from  her) 
Thou  sayest  things  that  others  would  reprove. 

Gal.     Indeed,  Pygmalion  ;  then  it  is  wrong 
To  think  that  one  is  exquisitely  fair  ? 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  259 

Well,  Galatea,  it's  a  sentiment 
That  every  woman  shares  with  thee  ; 
They  think  it — but  they  keep  it  to  themselves. 

Gal.     And  is  thy  wife  as  beautiful  as  I  ? 

Pyg.  No,  Galatea,  for  in  forming  thee 
I  took  her  features — lovely  in  themselves — 
And  in  the  marble  made  them  lovelier  still. 

Gal.  (disappointed}.     Oh  !  then  I'm  not  original  ? 


The  last  expression  is  hardly  tolerable  in  its 
psychology,  even  in  a  burlesque,  where  the  whole 
subject  is  grotesque  and  unnatural.  Though  the 
other  remarks  of  the  statue  may  pass,  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  her  pouting  over  her  own  want  of  "originality." 
But  I  am  fault-finding  where  I  meant  to  praise. 
Taken  as  a  whole,  and  seen  as  represented  on  the 
stage,  this  play  has  really  a  pleasant  effect.  It 
contains  just  enough  imagination  to  redeem  the 
dialogue  from  mere  farce.  Mrs.  Kendal,  who  played 
Galatea,  imparted  to  the  character  a  delicate  and 
dreamy  beauty,  noticeable  even  in  her  slow "  swim- 
ming "  movements  about  the  stage,  which  lifted  it 
into  the  high  region  of  an  Aristophanic  creation ;  she 
seemed  indeed  one  of  the  great  Athenian's  own 
TrapdevoL  o/Jsffpotyopoi,  descending  into  the  region 
of  modern  comedy,  and  the  ears  almost  listened 
for  the  music  of  strophe  and  antistrophe.  And 
now,  if  Mr.  Gilbert  will  forgive  me  for  having 
found  so  many  faults,  I  shall  try  to  make  amends 
by  saying  that  in  more  than  this  particular  he 
resembles  Aristophanes.  No  living  dramatist  has 
his  originality,  and  no  living  writer  has  his  quiddity ; 
and  if,  with  all  his  satiric  gifts,  he  were  capable  of 
passion — that  is,  genuine  satiric  passion,  he  might  do 
in  a  measure  for  our  generation  what  Aristophanes 
did  for  his.  The  Happy  Land,  a  burlesque  of  a 
burlesque,  his  own  Wicked  World,  was  perfect.  Mr. 

s  2 


260  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Gilbert  has  also  perpetrated  a  delicious  absurdity 
called  Trial  by  Jury.  Nothing  could  be  better. 
It  would  have  delighted  Thackeray. 

Reverting  for  a  moment  to  Pygmalion  and  Galatea, 
which  I  suspect  Mr.  Gilbert  regards  as  his  master- 
piece, I  must  regret  that  its  general  treatment  was 
not  either  levelled  to  the  broadness  of  the  coarser 
passages,  or  raised  to  the  level  of  the  finer  nuances 
of  the  situations.  As  it  is,  the  effect  is  irritating. 
True,  Aristophanes  himself  uses  both  absurdity  and 
poetry,  but  he  never  blends  them  in  this  way ;  and 
his  delicious  lyrical  effects  are  reserved  for  the 
chorus.  Mr.  Gilbert's  play  contains  one  truly 
imaginative  passage,  that  where  Galatea  chronicles 
her  first  experience  of  sleep  and  dreams.  It  is  as 
follows : 


Gal.  I  sat  alone  and  wept — and  wept 

A  long,  long  time  for  my  Pygmalion. 
Then  by  degrees — by  tedious  degrees, 
The  light — the  glorious  light ! — the  God-sent  light, 
I  saw  it  sink — sink — sink — behind  the  world ; 
Then  I  grew  cold — cold — as  I  used  to  be, 
Before  my  loved  Pygmalion  gave  me  life. 
Then  came  the  fearful  thought  that,  by  degrees, 
I  was  returning  into  stone  again ; 

How  bitterly  I  wept,  and  prayed  aloud 
That  I  might  not  be  so  !     "  Spare  me,  ye  gods  ! 
Spare  me,"  I  cried,  "  for  my  Pygmalion, 
A  little  longer  for  Pygmalion  ! 
Oh,  take  me  not  so  early  from  my  love  ; 
Oh,  let  me  see  him  once,  but  once  again  ! " 
But  no — they  heard  me  not,  for  they  are  good, 
And  had  they  heard,  must  needs  have  pitied  me ; 
They  had  not  seen  thee,  and  they  did  not  know 
The  happiness  that  I  must  leave  behind. 
I  fell  upon  thy  couch  (to  Myrine),  my  eyelids  closed, 
My  senses  faded  from  me  one  by  one  ; 
I  knew  no  more  until  I  found  myself, 
After  a  strange  dark  interval  of  time, 
Once  more  upon  my  hated  pedestal, 
A  statue — motionless— insensible  ; 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  261 

And  then  I  saw  the  glorious  gods  come  down  ! 
Down  to  this  room  !  the  air  was  filled  with  them, 
They  came  and  looked  upon  Pygmalion, 
And  looking  on  him,  kissed  him  one  by  one, 
And  said,  in  tones  that  spoke  to  me  of  life, 
"  We  cannot  take  her  from  such  happiness  ! 
Live,  Galatea,  for  his  love  ! "    And  then 
The  glorious  light  that  I  had  lost  came  back — 
There  was  Myrine's  room,  there  was  her  couch, 
There  was  the  sun  in  heaven ;  and  the  birds 
Sang  once  more  in  the  great  green  waving  trees, 
As  I  had  heard  them  sing— I  lived  once  more, 
To  look  oft  him  I  love ! 

Myr.  'Twas  but  a  dream  !  (coming  down) 

Once  every  day  this  death  occurs  to  us, 
Till  thou  and  I  and  all  who  dwell  on  earth, 
Shall  sleep  to  wake  no  more  ! 

Gal.  (horrified,  takes  Myrine's  hand).    To  wake  no  more  ! 


But  a  little  after  uttering  this,  Galatea  is  com- 
menting vulgarly  on  the  podginess  of  Chrysos  (Mr. 
Buckstone),  and  exclaiming,  "  Mother !  what  is  that  ? 
I  never  had  one.  Have  people  usually  mothers  ? " 
to  which  Mr.  Buckstone — I  mean  Chrysos — replies, 
with  the  leer  and  chuckle  familiar  at  the  Haymarket, 
"  Well— that  is  the  rule ! "  I  do  not  say  that  Mr. 
Gilbert  could  by  treating  his  theme  in  the  highest 
manner  have  achieved  as  thorough  a  success,  but  I 
do  lament  to  see  an  author  of  his  talent,  which 
commands  the  warmest  admiration,  descending  to  so 
vulgarising  a  treatment.  The  scenes  with  Chrysos 
were  simply  nasty,  less,  perhaps,  through  any  inten- 
tion of  the  author,  than  through  the  satyric  unction 
of  the  male  comedian.  I  have  already  expressed  my 
opinion  of  the  censorship  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain. 
Although  censorship  begins  at  home,  the  gentleman 
who  interdicted  the  Demi-monde  had  nothing  to  say  to 
certain  portions  of  the  Wicked  World,  or  to  that 
portion  of  Pygmalion  and  Galatea  where  Mrs.  Kendal, 
in  commenting  on  the  shape  of  Chrysos,  was  to  all 


262  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

intents  and  purposes  compelled  to  pass  her  hand  up 
and  down  Mr.  Buckstone's  abdomen,  which  resembled 
that  of  an  African  aboriginal  blown  out  with  "  bang." 
I  am  not  going  to  insist  on  the  indelicacy  of  these 
matters.  Perhaps,  as  the  audience  was  not  shocked, 
they  contained  nothing  shocking.  But  I  do  insist 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  Demi-monde  or  similar 
masterpieces  to  shock  the  delicacy  half  as  much,  and 
that  the  detection  of  indelicacies,  if  they  exist,  is  the 
business  and  prerogative  of  the  audience,  and  no 
business  of  any  solitary  person  in  authority.  It  is 
not  for  a  moment  to  be  argued  that  the  modern 
French  drama  is  clean.  Such  scenes  as  the  supper 
scene  in  Le  Re'veillon  are  certainly  indecent ;  and  well 
might  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  complain  that  those  who 
virtuously  insist  on  adding  an  inch  to  the  skirts  of 
our  ballet-dancers  are  comparatively  lenient  to  foreign 
artistes.  The  Press  and  the  Public,  however,  not  the 
Court,  are  the  proper  authorities  to  settle  such  matters. 
Their  power  is  at  once  indisputable  and  overwhelming. 
If  a  few  super-sensitive  souls  complain  that  neither 
Press  nor  Public  is  severe  enough,  let  them  show  their 
indignation  by  staying  at  home.  So  far  as  I  see,  it 
is  not  openly  indecent  pieces  which  most  offend  our 
Lord  Paramount,  but  psychological  dramas  dealing 
chiefly  with  the  violation  of  the  marriage  tie.  Despite 
our  breach  of  promise  cases,  and  our  Divorce  Court, 
we  are  so  virtuous  here  in  England  that  we  shiver  at 
the  very  notion  of  a  matrimonial  breach  of  contract. 
To  my  mind,  however,  nothing  but  good  could  result 
even  here  from  a  free  performance  of  French  "  social  " 
pieces.  We  are  not  so  good  as  we  seem,  and  Mor- 
daunt  trials  are  merely  the  occasional  eruptions  of  a 
volcano  which  is  ever  blazing  under  the  surface. 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  263 

Dumas  fits,  with  all  his  faults,  has  purified  his 
audiences.  His  ideal  is  not  high,  but  to  the  French 
bourgeoisie  it  has  been  elevating,  and  it  could  certainly 
do  us  no  harm.  Moreover,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  the  representation  of  a  work  of  high  artistic 
merit,  full  of  accurate  character-painting  and  delicate 
psychology,  though  its  subject  may  be  unpleasant 
and  its  treatment  anatomic,  is  more  in  the  interests  of 
public  morality  than  the  representation  of  an  apothe- 
osis of  vulgar  virtue.  The  British  Matron,  whose  ethics 
are  those  of  the  farmyard,  and  who  deliberately  sells 
her  own  young  to  the  highest  bidder,  ruffles  her 
feathers  and  squeaks  her  horror  whenever  naughty 
subjects  are  spoken  of ;  but  a  more  careful  study  of 
social  complications,  though  shocking  at  first,  might 
do  her  good.  Marriage  by  her  is  held  inviolable,  and 
so  true  marriage  should  be ;  but  the  bond  she  means 
is  a  mercantile  bargain,  sacred  to  her  as  the  contents 
of  her  pocket.  Inspired  by  her,  we  in  England  value 
a  purse  more  than  a  life,  and  deem  an  open  violation 
of  what  is  often  a  brutal  fraud,  the  one  unpardonable 
sin. 

But  I  am  forgetting  my  dramatists.  The  men- 
tion of  the  name  of  our  leading  burlesque  writer 
naturally  leads  me  to  consider  those  others  who  call 
themselves  burlesque  writers  also.  But  as  an  artist 
Mr.  Gilbert  is  almost  solitary.  His  are  true  comic 
creations,  not  mere  monstrosities.  Mr.  F.  C.  Burnand 
is  exquisitely  funny  at  times ;  but  his  stage  work  is 
never  done  au  serieux — that  is,  with  attempt  to  pro- 
duce anything  really  admirable.  His  animal  spirits 
are  great,  and  his  sense  of  incongruity  perfect ;  he  is 
an  adept  in  stage  tricks  ;  and  his  pages  are  perfectly 
incomprehensible  to  one  not  adept  in  Cockney  slang. 


264  A   LOOfC  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Here  are  Bacchus  and  Zephyr  "returning  from  an 
evening  party  " : 


Bacc.     A  very  merry  evening  !  for,  as  you  know, 
There's  no  one  gives  a  party  like  Queen  Juno ; 
They  spoilt  the  coffee,  tho',  with  too  much  chicory. 

Zeph.     I  say  ! — each  dance,  you  flirted  with  Terpsichore  I 
(Digs  him  in  the  ribs — sly  dog  business?) 


Conceive  the  agony  of  an  intelligent  foreigner  battling 
with  the  awful  idiom  of  this  stage  direction.  Mr. 
Burnand's  Olympus  is  redolent  of  Cockaigne.  Venus 
sings  sweet  ditties  to  the  tune  of  "  Billy  Taylor,"  and 
the  oracle  at  Delphi  joins  in  chorus  with  "tiddy  fol," 
etc.  Zephyr  talks  of  "  taking  a  bus  "  while  walking 
down  "  The  Strand."  Cupid  talks  about  "  Burlington 
Arcade"  and  Kew  Gardens.  The  effect  is  sometimes 
funny,  more  often  dreary.  The  author  of  "  Happy 
Thoughts"  should  be  capable  of  better  work.  His 
characteristic  recklessness,  however,  has  made  his 
case  hopeless.  Even  less  amusing  than  Mr.  Burnand's 
are  Mr.  Byron's.  To  the  same  rank  belongs  all  the 
meretricious  foolery  of  the  day.  Instead  of  Aristo- 
phanes, we  have  Joe  Miller  and  the  Ethiopian  Sere- 
naders  done  into  dramatic  scenes.  The  decline  and 
fall  of  extravaganza  has  been  rapid  in  the  hands  of 
its  latest  exponents.  When  Mr.  Planch^  searched 
Fairyland  for  subjects,  children  of  all  ages  could  go- 
to Covent  Garden  for  delicate  fun  and  picturesque 
romance.  The  spirit  of  "  Once  upon  a  time  there 
were  two  kings,"  is  almost  idyllic,  and  the  "  Yellow 
Dwarf"  is  a  genuine  fairy  tale  for  the  stage.  Even 
the  succeeding  school  of  Brough  and  Talfourd  had 
great  and  distinguishing  merits.  Who  that  saw 
Robson  in  Brough's  Masaniello  can  forget  the  tragic 
agony  of  the  little  conspirator,  as  pale  and  tremulous,. 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  265 

the  clammy  perspiration  on  his  brow,  and  his  jaw 
dropping,  he  tottered  in,  crying, 

"  They've  done  it  now— they've  laid  a  tax  on  winkles  !" 

Not  less  striking  was  the  pathetic  reproachfulncss 
of  the  same  actor  in  Fair  Rosamund  when,  as  Queen 
Eleanor,  he  addressed  the  unfaithful  king  with  one 
word,  his  own  unaspirated  Christian  name,  "  'Enry  !  " 
This,  with  all  its  absurdity,  was  real  burlesque. 
Something  of  a  similar  spirit  breathes  in  a  ridiculous 
production  of  Mr.  Reece,  wherein  Romulus  and 
Remus,  two  very  naugfity  children,  played  by  Messrs. 
James  and  Thorne,  quarrelled  while  building  up 
Rome  with  a  "  box  of  bricks  !  "  The  only  surviving 
representative  of  fine  extravaganza  is  Mr.  Blanchard, 
whose  yearly  pantomime  at  Drury  Lane  is  always 
what  it  professes  to  be — a  dramatised  fairy  tale,  full 
of  light  pictures,  and  without  a  shadow  of  vulgarity. 
Passing  from  the  dramatists  who  write  in  blank 
verse,  and  from  the  burlesque  writers,  who  write  in 
verse  and  worse,  I  come  to  those  gentlemen  who 
may  be  described  as  general  dramatists,  to  whom 
nothing  theatrical  comes  amiss,  but  who  are  perhaps 
most  at  home  in  plundering  helpless  novelists  and 
adapting  from  the  French.  Towering  before  me  rises 
a  stately  figure,  with  a  head  recalling  the  Chandos 
bust  of  Shakespeare,  beautiful  in  its  benignant  bald- 
ness, with  a  twinkling  eye  and  self-satisfied  smile  on 
the  lips.  I  recognise  him  at  once — it  is  our  latter 
Shakespeare  and  our  greater ;  a  swan  from  the  Shan- 
non, uttering  his  wondrous  notes  in  a  delicious 
brogue,  and  breathing  softly  his  own  dulcet  name  of 
chaste  "Dion."  He  has  written  one  hundred  and 
fifty  dramas,  some  dozen  of  which  have  surpassed  all 
modern  productions  in  their  successes.  He  might 


266  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

have  been  the  editor  of  the  Times  and  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  but  he  preferred  to  devise 
amusements  for  a  delighted  generation  :  to  turn 
LHomme  Blase  into  a  comedy  for  Charles  Mathews  ; 
to  take  and  mutilate  the  Louis  XI.  of  Casimir 
Delavigne;  to  translate  Dumas'  Corsican  Brothers; 
to  dramatise  the  Collegians  of  Gerald  Griffin. 
The  first  appearance  of  Mr.  Boucicault  was  as  a 
poet !  When  quite  a  young  man  he  contributed  to 
Bentley's  Miscellany  a  poem  called  "  Darkness/' 
which,  for  some  inscrutable  reason,  the  publishers 
have  reprinted  in  the  "  Bentley  Ballads."  Anything 
more  dismal  and  uninstructed  than  this  piece  I  have 
never  encountered.  It  reads  like  a  poem  from  Mr. 
Dobell's  "Balder"  turned  into  morality  by  Mr.  Tupper, 
and  then  done  into  blank  verse  by  one  of  Mr.  Blimber's 
"young  gentlemen."  The  author's  first  play  was  a 
comedy,  London  Assurance,  which  remains,  with  all 
its  faults,  his  masterpiece.  All  the  characters  had 
done  duty  before  in  comedy.  The  languid  old  man 
about  town  with  a  rakish  son,  whom  he  believes  to  be 
an  innocent ;  the  rattling  Londoner,  who  is  ready  to 
become  bosom-friend  with  anybody ;  the  rattling 
lady  who  hunts ;  the  boobyish  husband  who  follows 
at  that  lady's  heels;  the  meddlesome  lawyer;  the 
confidential  valet — all  are  familiar  figures,  farcical  in 
outline,  sketchy  in  drawing.  The  dialogue,  brisk  and 
telling,  reads  like  Sheridan  and  water,  faintly  lemoned 
with  Douglas  Jerrold,  and  sugared  by  Sheridan 
Knowles.  It  is  quick  and  jerky,  to  a  great  extent 
monosyllabic  ;  when  it  rises  to  anything  resembling 
emotion,  it  is  simply  insufferable.  This  is  the  rubbish 
a  plain  old  baronet,  whose  other  dialogue  is  simple  in 
the  extreme,  is  made  to  talk,  in  his  enthusiasm  over 
hunting  : — "  What  state  can  match  the  chase  in  full 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  i> 7 

cry,  each  vying  with  his  fellow  which  shall  be  most 
happy?  A  thousand  deaths  fly  by  unheeded  in  tli.it 
one  hour's  life  of  ecstasy.  Time  is  outrun,  and  nature 
seems  to  grudge  our  bliss  in  making  the  day  too 
short."  The  heroine  talks  gushingly,  in  the  "  Dark- 
ness "  mood,  of  the  "  first  tear  that  glitters  in  the  eye 
of  morning,"  and  of  "  the  shrilly  choir  of  the  wood- 
land minstrels,  to  which  the  modest  brook  trickles 
applause."  The  lover,  save  the  mark !  informs 
mistress  that  "  the  beams  of  that  bright  face  falling 
on  my  soul,  have,  from  its  chaos,  warmed  into  life  the 
flowerets  of  affection,  whose  maiden  odours  now  float 
towards  the  sun,  pouring  forth  in  their  pure  tongue  a 
mite  of  adoration,  midst  the  voices  of  a  universe/1 
It  is  clear  that,  when  the  stage  secured  Boucicault 
literature  lost  a  Close.  The  success  of  London 
Assurance  was  secured  by  such  artists  as  Farren, 
Harley,  Keeley,  and  Mrs.  Nisbett.  Twenty  years 
elapsed,  during  which  the  author  continued  to  v. 
indefatigably  without  any  conspicuous  triumph,  but 
in  1859-60  the  success  of  the  Colleen  Bawn,  which 
ran  for  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  nights,  took 
London  by  storm.  This  drama,  which  is  really  a 
stage  version  of  one  of  the  most  picturesque  Irish 
novels  ever  written,  brought  its  adapter  a  fortune. 
Its  merits  were  great,  but  they  belong  to  Gerald 
Griffin.  Great  successes  rapidly  followed  ;  t\\c  Streets 
of  London,  Flying  Scud,  After  Dark,  and  Arrah-na- 
Pogue,  made  the  name  of  Boucicault  a  household  word. 
Shakespeare  was  forgotten,  but  his  mantle  had  fallen 
upon  glorious  shoulders.  Now  came  the  theatrical 
apotheosis  of  the  railway  train,  the  racecourse,  and 
the  town-pump.  Now  did  the  modern  Orlando, 
disguised  as  the  driver  of  a  Hansom  cab,  prowl  about 
the  scene  representing  the  Adelphi  arches.  Now  did 


268  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

a  fat  female  jockey  sit  in  the  weighing  scales,  to  the 
delight  of  thousands ;  while  a  mighty  stage  mob  of 
carpenters  and  scene-shifters  applauded  the  racing  of 
cardboard  horses,  running  in  the  distance  for  the 
Derby.  The  triumph  of  realism  had  arrived,  and  the 
Shakespeare  of  the  New  Cut  and  Seven  Dials  had 
come. 

As  a  constructor  of  stage  plays,  Mr.  Boucicault  is 
unequalled,   and  here,  if  anywhere,  lies   his   special 
claim  to  distinction.     If  any  one  will  take  the  trouble 
to  compare  the  Colleen  Bawn  with  the  Collegians,  he 
will  see  how  the  dramatist,  while  preserving  every- 
thing, down   to   the   tiniest   detail,  fuses   all  into   a 
clever  and  more  telling  form.     His  dialogue  is  occa- 
sionally  very   happy,  but   comes  from   all   sorts    of 
sources.     Turning  from  the  mere  form  of  his  plays 
to  the   internal   morale,  the   student   perceives   at   a 
glance  that,  like  most  illiterate  productions,  they  are 
thoroughly  heartless.    He  has  been  styled  the  inventor 
of  the    Upholstery   school   of    Comedy — upholstery 
doing  in  his  comedies  what  pumps  and  steam-engines 
do  in  his  dramas,   and  his  ethics  are,  as  might  be 
expected,  those  of  the  bill-broker  and  the  furniture- 
dealer.     Indeed,  his  plays,  like  cheap  furniture,  seem 
made  to  sell.     Though  neatly  put  together,  they  are 
composed   of  cheap   material   and   a   great   deal   of 
veneer ;  and  when  he  does  introduce  a  fine,  sterling, 
solid  article,  it  is  sure,  on  inspection,  to  prove  second- 
hand.    Such  a  gem  as   the  character  of  Myles-na- 
Coppaleen  is  too  fine  to  be  his  own ;  he  has  polished 
it  up,  however,  to  the  highest  pitch  of  stage  brightness. 
The  mention  of  the  Upholstery  school  leads  me 
by  a  natural  transition  to  that  Cabinet  school  which 
is  its  natural  successor,  and  which  is  generally  known 
by  the  title  of  Robertsonian.     Nothing  could  be  more 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  269 

touching  than  the  living  career  of  the  late  Mr.  Tom 
Robertson ;  he  endured  hardships  and  vicissitudes 
enough  to  crush  any  spirit,  and  only  at  the  last 
moment  awoke  from  his  dream  of  poverty  to  find 
himself  famous  and  rich.  His  talents  were  un- 
doubtedly fine,  his  perception  of  his  vocation  delicate 
in  the  extreme ;  his  defects  belong  less  to  his  work- 
manship, than  to  his  system.  Born  as  it  were  on  the 
stage,  he  early  perceived  the  folly  and  absurdity  of 
many  stage  traditions.  He  felt  that  acting  as  a  rule 
was  artificial  and  unnatural,  that  actors  were  too 
stagy  and  too  stiff,  and  that  this  was  partly  a  con- 
sequence of  unnatural  and  stagy  dramatic  conceptions. 
Setting  carefully  to  work,  he  produced,  after  several 
failures,  his  first  and  most  popular  comedy,  Caste, 
the  spirit  of  which  is  the  simplest  naturalism,  the 
situations  such  as  happen  every  day,  the  dialogue 
such  commonplace  as  is  spoken  by  commonplace 
people  in  real  life.  The  effect  was  electrical,  and 
Mr.  Robertson  was  at  once  recognised  as  the  Trollope 
of  the  stage.  Without  being  original,  the  characters 
were  life-like,  and  they  did  the  ordinary  business  of 
life — such  as  laying  table-cloths,  carrying  tea-kettles, 
and  cutting  bread-and-butter — in  the  easiest  style 
imaginable.  It  is  wonderful  how  modern  audiences 
love  on  the  stage  the  common  facts  of  every-day 
life  —  how  they  thrill  with  joy  at  the  sound  of 
the  postman's  knock,  or  the  muffin  bell,  and  how 
they  rejoice  when  they  see  an  actor,  dressed  like 
a  real  gentleman,  open  a  real  umbrella  or  smoke  a 
real  cigar.*  Mr.  Robertson  discovered  this  taste,  and 

*  In  a  West-End  comedy  produced  at  this  period,  a  leading 
scene  represented  a  certain  Park  at  dusk,  when  the  chairs  for 
visitors  are  gathered  together  and  put  away  by  a  boy  in  buttons. 
The  scene  was  recognised  at  once  with  delight,  but  the  great 


270  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

humoured  it  to  the  full.  His  comedies  are  minute 
cabinet  pictures  of  society,  admirably  constructed 
for  stage  purposes,  with  a  masterly  perception  of 
the  tableau.  As  reading  they  are,  of  course,  in- 
sufferable :  that  is  no  fault  of  the  dramatist.  Acted 
by  the  artistes  of  the  Prince  of  Wales5  Theatre,  they 
were  simply  perfection.  It  has  been  argued  against 
them,  with  some  show  of  reason,  that  as  they  deal 
with  the  most  commonplace  persons  and  incidents, 
they  are  hardly  worth  the  trouble  and  expense  of 
seeing,  since  the  real  persons  and  incidents  are  un- 
fortunately too  common  to  every  one's  perception. 
"  We  don't  go  to  the  theatre,"  cry  the  severe  critics 
of  the  drama,  "  to  see  lackadaisical  schoolgirls 
flirting  with  imbecile  Guardsmen,  to  contemplate 
crockery  and  inhale  the  steam  of  real  tripe  at  a  real 
supper,  to  listen  to  the  vapid  conversation  of  vapid 
people  such  as  we  encounter  daily ;  we  go  to  hear 
great  thoughts  expressed  in  grand  language,  to  have 
our  souls  exalted  by  noble  situations,  to  mark  the 
fiery  conflict  of  passions,  and  the  subtle  lights  and 
shades  of  human  character."  This  is  all  very  well, 
and  means  just  that  they  prefer  Shakespeare  to 
Robertson.  But  if  we  examine  closely  into  the  truth, 
we  shall  discover  that  Robertson,  in  his  own  way, 
was  a  poet  too.  No  mere  vapid  realist  could  com- 
mand such  thorough  success.  His  incidents  may  be 
commonplace,  his  characters  may  wear  modern 
dresses  and  talk  modern  slang,  but  the  fact  is,  he 
composed  pictures  which  were  pleasant  to  see  on 
account  of  their  artistic  qualities.  Those  who  do  not 

point  was  the  appearance  of  the  real  boy,  who  after  his  real 
work  in  the  Park  was  done,  repeated  it  on  the  stage  nightly  > 
for  the  delectation  of  the  delighted  audience,  many  of  whom 
recognised  him  at  once. 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  271 

understand  how  this  can  be,  should  read  Mr. 
Browning's  "  Fra  Lippo  Lippi "  : 

Have  you  noticed,  now, 

Your  scullion's  hanging  face  ?    A  bit  of  chalk, 
And  trust  me  that  you  should  tho'  ? 

And  though  Polly  Eccles  and  Sam  Gerridge,  and  the 
rest,  may  not  be  worth  much  notice  in  real  life,  they 
had  real  colour  and  pleasantness  as  figures  on  the 
little  stage  near  Tottenham  Court  Road.  The  best 
of  Mr.  Robertson's  dramas  surpass  the  best  of  Mr. 
Boucicault's,  as  the  best  of  Mr.  Blackmore's  novels 
surpass  the  best  of  Mr.  Trollope's — by  virtue  of  their 
gleams  of  simple  poetic  feeling.  A  maiden  parting 
from  her  lover,  a  wife  separated  from  her  husband, 
a  schoolgirl  waking  from  her  first  dream,  a  soldier 
reading  letters  from  home  at  the  seat  of  war — all 
these  are  simple  figures  enough,  but  they  grow 
interesting  in  the  light  of  a  genuine  emotion.  I  do 
not  for  a  moment  affirm  that  Mr.  Robertson's  is  high 
art ;  it  is  art  of  a  kind.  Its  faults  are  those  of  the 
life  it  depicts  :  occasional  heartlessness,  shallow 
attempts  at  verbal  wit,  monotony  of  character- 
painting,  the  persistent  representation  of  vulgar 
moods  and  modes. 

We  call  it  pretty— that  is,  pretty  well  ! 

But  to  deny  that  it  evidences  poetic  skill  is  certainly 
unfair.  There  is  obviously  poetry  in  it — of  situation, 
of  picture,  though  not  of  character  and  dialogue. 
This  can  scarcely  be  said  of  any  other  modern  school 
of  comedy.  On  another  score,  too,  we  owe  gratitude 
to  Mr.  Robertson.  He  rebelled  against  the  mock- 
heroic  and  stagy  nonsense  which  had  so  long  flooded 
the  theatre.  He  determined  at  all  hazards  that  his 


272  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

people  should  always  be  natural,  his  situations  never 
artificial.  He  taught  his  actors  to  abandon  their 
gasping  "  oh's  "  and  "  ah's,"  their  stage  strides,  their 
unnatural  looks  and  gestures.  He  suggested  that 
they  should  endeavour  to  speak  as  men  and  women 
in  real  life  do,  and  as  French  actors  and  actresses 
generally  try  to  do.  With  this  purpose  he  simplified 
his  characters,  his  scenes,  and  his  dialogues.  At  first 
there  was  a  difficulty.  "  Gentlemen "  were  wanted, 
and  actors,  as  a  rule,  were  not  like  "gentlemen." 
The  Gordian  knot  was  solved  by  securing  the  real 
article,  and  more  than  one  distinguished  amateur  was 
tempted,  by  the  growth  of  society-dramas,  to  adopt 
the  stage  as  a  profession. 

So  far  the  gain  was  clear.  The  Scylla  of  arti- 
ficiality was  avoided,  but  the  Charybdis  of  common- 
place lay  in  the  way  ;  and,  alas !  on  that  fatal  rock, 
the  so-called  Robertsonian  school  has  split  and  sunk. 
The  founder  of  the  school  died,  having  done  good 
service  to  Art,  and  never,  I  believe,  overstrained  his 
natural  pretensions.  His  very  genius,  however, 
deluded  the  public.  A  cry  arose  for  realism,  and 
the  cry,  which  was  answered  to  the  heart's 
content  of  the  crier,  has  hardly  yet  died  away. 
Instead  of  being  kept  for  gauging  actors  and 
acting  of  the  Cabinet  kind,  the  Robertsonian  test  has 
been  applied  to  greater  actors  and  nobler  acting ;  so 
that  English  performances  have  become  more  and 
more  distinguished  for  a  dull,  dead  uniformity  of 
mediocrity.  Many  people  have  gone  to  the  extreme 
of  renouncing  the  poetic  drama  altogether,  on  the 
score  that  it  is  not  in  the  least  like  real  life;  forgetting 
that  poetic  language  bears  the  same  relation  to  high 
art  that  marble  does  to  flesh,  and  though  different  in 
its  superficial  resemblances,  resembles  in  its  latent 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  273 

suggestions.  Strong  passions  have  been  decried,  strong 
gestures  censured,  strong  emotions  disliked, as  offensive 
to  the  sense  of  realism.  Dramatists  have  been  afraid 
to  take  an  imaginative  flight,  or  to  utter  a  flowery 
sentiment,  from  fear  of  the  realist.  The  stage  has 
lost  dimensions,  actors  have  lost  dignity.  Upholsterers 
and  milliners  have  taken  possession  of  a  thousand 
theatres ;  and  even  the  art  of  the  scene-painter, 
who  used  to  produce  grand  effects  by  Turneresque 
delineations  of  the  brush,  has  been  exchanged  for  the 
microscopic  skill  of  the  Cabinet  designer.  The  best 
proof  of  Mr.  Robertson's  genius  is  that  all  these 
effects,  which  he  instituted,  are  useless  without  him, 
and  that  in  the  one  touch  of  poetry  which  redeemed 
all  his  imperfections  he  has  never  found  a  successor. 

In  the  style  of  verbal  wit  of  which  he  was  so  fond, 
he  has  found  many.  Perhaps  the  most  conspicuous 
offender  is  Mr.  H.  J.  Byron,*  who  began  his  literary 
career  as  a  burlesque  writer,  and  who  is  now  the  most 
indefatigable  caterer  of  "  comedies  "  for  the  London 
stage.  Mr.  Byron  has  two  qualifications  for  theatrical 
success — he  understands  stage  business,  and  he  is  an 
irrepressible  punster.  In  his  pieces,  a  number  of 
infinitely  vulgar  people — labelled  respectively  "noble- 
men," "gentlemen,"  "authors/'  "ladies,"  "shop- 
keepers," "  actors,"  but  all  bearing  an  indescribable 
family  likeness,  assail  each  other  with  vulgar  verbal 
quibbles  from  scene  to  scene,  in  utter  defiance  of 
probability,  and  with  no  attempt  whatever  at 
suitability  or  sequence.  Characters  these  plays  have 
none,  save  such  as  may  be  detected  in  "  Boz's " 
prentice-sketches,  or  extinct  Adelphi  farces.  They 
do  for  the  stage  what  Albert  Smith's  novels  did  for 
the  library,  and  they  are  relished,  I  suppose,  by  the 

*  Since  deceased. 


274  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

same  class  of  people.  Their  best  feature  is  their 
innocence  of  all  intent ;  their  worst  is  their  vulgarity. 
They  might  be  passed  over  in  silence,  if  they  did  not 
constantly  occupy  the  London  stage,  to  the  exclusion 
doubtless  of  productions  of  real  merit.  Mr.  Albery's 
Two  Roses  isof  otherand  finer  quality — a  really  genuine 
little  play,  although  belonging  also  to  the  new  school. 
As  I  write,  the  reaction  against  mere  realism, 
which  began,  doubtless,  with  the  success  of  Mr.  Wills 
and  Mr.  Irving,  has  culminated  in  some  striking 
theatrical  phenomena.  A  great  actor,  Signer  Salvini, 
has  appeared  in  London  in  an  Italian  translation  of 
Othello,  and  his  success  has  been  in  proportion  to 
the  originality — or  what  many  think  the  outrageous- 
ness — of  his  conception.  Sad  to  say,  he  has  not 
entirely  pleased  the  critics,  some  of  whom  accuse  him 
of  extravagance.  The  entire  dramatic  profession, 
however,  with  striking  unanimity,  has  risen  to  do  the 
great  foreigner  honour,  and  to  recognise  in  his  person 
the  rights  of  the  long-forgotten  tragic  Muse.  Now 
for  the  first  time,  after  long  labouring  under  the 
delusion  that  Othello  was  a  dull,  hoarse-spoken 
blackamoor,  who  in  the  mildest  possible  way  smothers 
his  wife  with  an  embroidered  pillow,  we  discover  the 
incarnate  Moor,  Titanic,  terrible,  striking  down  all 
opposition,  raging  on  the  torrent  of  his  own  wrath, 
haling  Desdemona  to  death  by  the  hair,  and  finally 
cutting  his  own  throat  with  the  most  terrible  realism 
of  detail.  A  few  years  ago,  this  performance 
would  have  been  hissed.  To-day,  audiences  familiar 
with  the  horrors  of  The  Bells  greet  it  as  the  finest 
acting  in  the  world.  To  my  mind,  it  is  entirely 
in  the  interests  of  Art  that  so  powerful  and 
original  a  reading  of  Shakespeare's  drama  should 
have  achieved  this  popularity ;  it  encourages  the 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  275 

hope  that  attempts  at  originality  may  soon  be  the 
rule,  and  not  the  exception,  on  the  English  stage. 
Anything  weaker  than  the  stereotyped  conception 
of  Othello  can  scarcely  be  imagined.  Mr.  Fechter 
essayed  the  part  after  he  had  created  an  unparalleled 
sensation  by  playing  Hamlet  in  a  flaxen  wig  ;  his 
mild,  gentlemanly  jeunc  premier  with  a  black  face  did 
not  succeed  in  attracting  the  masses.  He  listened  in 
the  most  well-bred  manner  to  the  insinuations  of 
lago,  his  strongest  passions  being  conveyed  by  an 
open  mouth,  elevated  shoulders,  and  turned  out 
palms  ;  and  when  he  came  to  the  murder,  he  did  it  as 
gingerly  with  his  pillow  as  a  careful  father  covering 
up  a  baby.  It  is  said  that  Mr.  Irving  is  going  to  try 
the  character,  and  that  he  does  not  like  Salvini's 
conception.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  Mr.  Irving  in 
any  part  demanding  powerful  physique  or  mighty 
passion.  His  appearance  is  cadaverous,  and  his  voice 
is  weak.  His  manners  on  the  stage  are  dignified 
without  grandeur.  His  pathos,  when  he  attempts 
pathos,  is  chiefly  conveyed  by  a  huskiness  of  the 
voice  and  a  galvanic  quivering  of  the  hands.  His 
success  in  Hamlet  should  not  mislead  him,  for 
Hamlet  is  a  character  in  which  no  actor  has  ever 
failed,  so  admirably  helped  is  it  at  every  point  by  the 
magnificent  structure  of  the  situations.*  Mr.  Irving 
is  an  actor  of  original  genius,  greater  perhaps  by 
reason  of  its  very  limitations  than  a  genius  more 
fluent  in  adapting  itself  to  character  foreign  to  itself. 
He  would  succeed  as  Richard  III.  ;  he  might  succeed 

*  Since  the  above  was  printed,  Salvini's  Hamlet  has  startled 
London.  The  character  so  represented  becomes  what  Hamlet 
might  have  been,  had  he  been  born  in  Tuscany,  during  the 
-ducal  reign  of  Francesco  de  Medici  ;  it  is  full-blooded  Italian, 
and  resembles  as  little  the  Danish  Prince  of  Shakespeare  as 
the  legendary  Amleth  of  Oehlenschlager, 

T    2 


276  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

as  Macbeth.  I  believe  he  would  comparatively 
fail  in  Othello,  in  Coriolanus,  or  in  other  parts 
characterised  by  intellectual  robustness  or  predomi- 
nant passion. 

Simultaneously  with  the  success  of  Salvini's  pas- 
sionate idealism,  occurred  the  failure  of  Mr.  Coghlan's 
mild  realism.  When  first  the  announcement  ap- 
peared that  the  management  of  the  Prince  of  Wales' 
Theatre  were  about  to  produce  The  Merchant  of 
Venice  with  Mr.  Coghlan  in  the  chief  character, 
playgoers  expressed  a  very  natural  astonishment. 
The  theatre  had  been  the  temple  of  the  Robertson ian 
Muse,  and  although  since  the  dramatist's  death  it  had 
despairingly  betaken  itself  to  such  ghastly  pieces  as 
Mr.  Wilkie  Collins'  Man  and  Wife,  it  had  re- 
deemed its  own  credit  by  the  production  of  a  pretty 
little  trifle  by  Mr.  Gilbert  —  Sweethearts.  Mr. 
Coghlan  was  known  as  the  jenne  premier  of  the 
Robertsonian  drama,  an  excellent  actor,  with  oc- 
casional exhibitions  of  strength  and  insight,  but 
certainly  not  one  from  whom  was  expected  any  high 
poetic  exhibition.  The  experiment  in  the  interest 
of  realism  has  been  made,  and  the  failure  has  been 
complete.  Mr.  Coghlan's  quiet,  gentlemanly  Jew 
has  been  voted  an  impossibility,  and  worse,  a  bore. 
The  famous  scene  between  Shylock  and  Antonio 
dwindles  down  into  a  mild  conversation  between  two 
courteous  merchants : 

Shy.  Signor  Antonio,  many  a  time  and  oft, 

In  the  Rialto  you  have  rated  me 
About  my  moneys  and  my  usances  : 
Still  have  I  borne  it  -with  a  patient  shrug  ; 
For  sufferance  is  the  badge  of  all  our  tribe. 
You  call  me  "  misbeliever,  cut-throat  dog," 
And  spit  upon  my  Jewish  gaberdine  ; 
And  all  for  use  of  that  which  is  mine  own. 
Well,  then,  it  now  appears  you  need  my  help  : 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  277 

Go  to,  then  :  you  come  to  me,  and  you  say, 

"  Shylock,  we  would  have  moneys  :  "  you  say  so  ; 

You,  that  did  void  your  rheum  upon  my  beard, 

And  foot  me  as  you  spurn  a  stranger  cur 

Over  your  threshold.     Moneys  is  your  suit  : 

What  should  I  say  to  you  ?     Should  I  not  say, 

"  Hath  a  dog  money  ?     Is  it  possible 

A  cur  can  lend  three  thousand  ducats  ?  "     Or 

Shall  I  bend  low,  and  in  a  bondman's  key, 

With  bated  breath,  and  with  a  whispering  humbleness, 

Say  this  : 

*'  Fair  sir,  you  spit  on  me  on  Wednesday  last ; 

You  spurn'd  me  such  a  day  ;  another  time 

You  called  me  dog  ;  and  for  these  courtesies 

I'll  lend  you  thus  much  moneys." 

Ant.  I  am  as  like  to  call  thee  so  again, 

To  spit  on  thee  again,  to  spurn  thee  too. 
If  thou  wilt  lend  this  money,  lend  it  not 
As  to  thy  friends  ;  for  when  did  friendship  take 
A  breed  for  barren  metal  of  his  friend  ? 
But  lend  it  rather  to  thine  enemy, 
Who,  if  he  break,  thou  may'st  with  better  face 
Exact  the  penalty. 

Shy.  Why,  look  you,  how  you  storm  ! 

Mr.  Coghlan's  conception,  that  Shylock  is  gene- 
rally made  too  open  and  snake-like  a  villain,  a  mouther 
and  ranter  whose  every  look  and  word  would  awaken 
suspicion,  was  doubtless  right  enough  ;  but  something 
more  was  wanted  than  mere  negation  of  old  readings 
to  complete  the  part.  It  was  foolish  in  the  extreme 
not  to  perceive  that  the  Muse  of  Shakespeare  and 
that  of  Robertson  are  hopelessly  apart.  True,  even 
Shakespeare  gains  by  a  more  natural  style  of  gesture 
and  delivery,  such  as  Mr.  Calvert  has  been  en- 
deavouring to  cultivate  in  his  admirable  revivals  at 
Manchester ;  mouthing  and  bellowing  are  always 
offensive  and  unsuitable,  but  one  might  as  well  play 
the  Prometheus  of  ^Eschylus  in  gaiters  instead  of  in 
the  cothurnus,  and  modern  wigs  instead  of  the  mask, 
as  deliver  the  grand  style  of  drama  in  the  easy 
conversational  style  of  modern  comedy. 


278  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Of  the  resuscitation  of  that  drama,  I  believe  there 
is  hope ;  if  I  did  not,  it  would  hardly  have  been 
worth  while  to  take  the  above  retrospect.  Just  now 
the  theatre  is  shunned  by  the  students,  scorned  more 
or  less  by  litterateurs,  despised  entirely  by  philosophers. 
We  are  told  on  every  side  that  the  dramatic  Muse  is 
dead,  and  that  she  can  never  rise  again. 

She  is  dead  and  gone,  lady, 

She  is  dead  and  gone  ; 
At  her  head  a  grass  green  turf, 

At  her  heels  a  stone. 

And  over  her  stand  Mr.  Phelps  and  Mr.  Hermann 
Vezin,  in  chimney-pot  hats,  while  Mr.  Chattertori 
intones  her  requiem.  But  the  public  know  better. 
The  dramatic  Muse  lives — will  live  as  long  as  passions 
stir  in  men's  hearts,  as  long  as  thousands  delight  in 
the  mimic  stage.  It  is  simply  absurd  for  poets  and 
philosophers  to  glance  contemptuously  at  the  theatre 
— at  an  art  hallowed  by  the  grandest  achievements 
of  the  human  intellect,  and  glorified  by  godlike 
names  ;  and  it  is  equally  insane  to  lay  the  blame 
on  modern  actors  and  the  modern  public,  when  the 
real  fault  lies  with  the  intellectual  barrenness  of  this 
generation.  Let  a  great  dramatist  arise,  and  he 
will  find  great  actors,  and  perhaps  a  great  manager. 
I  do  not  say  there  would  be  no  difficulties  in  the  way  ; 
but  I  do  aver  that  the  reward  and  honour  of  the 
highest  probable  dramatic  success  would  be  greater 
than  that  hitherto  achieved  by  any  writer  of  this 
generation.  Just  now,  the  world,  wealthy  as  it  is 
in  feminine  and  fantastic  writers,  wants  a  great 
masculine  dramatist  above  all  things.  Such  an  one 
would  take  the  stage  as  it  is,  with  all  its  deficiencies, 
and  out  of  given  materials  evolve  a  noble  series  of 
productions.  He  would  be  harassed  by  miscon- 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  279 

captions  and  absurdities  ;  but  so  were  Euripides  and 
Racine.  He  would  be  often  badly  interpreted;  but 
so  were  Sophocles  and  Moliere.  His  grandest  pro- 
ductions might  be  misunderstood  ;  so  were  those  of 
^Eschylus  himself.  He  might  even  have  to  "  write 
in  "  inferior  matter  to  tickle  the  groundlings  ;  so  did 
Shakespeare  habitually.  At  no  time  in  English 
history  has  the  drama  been  recognised  as  the  highest 
department  of  literature  ;  it  has  always  been  more  or 
less  despised  by  serious  professors ;  and  this  fact  has 
deterred  many,  as  it  deterred  Milton,*  from  casting 
their  conceptions  in  the  dramatic  form.  For  this, 
English  criticism  is  certainly  to  blame.  Many  of  our 
poets,  such  as  Coleridge  and  Byron,  have  deliberately 
written  "  plays  for  the  closet,"  forgetting  that  the 
true  home  of  a  play  is  a  theatre,  the  true  destiny  of 
a  play  to  be  acted — well  or  ill,  as  the  case  may  be. 
This  destiny  has  been  filled  by  the  highest  master- 
pieces, from  the  Prometheus  of  ^Eschylus  to  the 
Hamlet  of  Shakespeare,  from  the  Ornithes  of  Aristo- 
phanes to  the  Tartuffe  of  Moliere.  There  are  other 
dramas,  like  those  masterpieces  of  Mr.  Browning, 
compiled  for  representation,  but  not  even  the  highest 
enthusiast  in  closet  literature  could  represent  any  of 
these  as  of  quite  equal  calibre. 

"  But/'  cry  the  wiseacres,  "  the  public  must  be 
amused,  and  the  highest  products  of  the  human 
intellect  are  not  amusing."  After  this  we  shall  be 
told  that  Othello  does  not  draw  the  masses,  and  that 
Le  Malade  Imaginaire  is  not  funny.  "  The  finest 
productions  of  the  Elizabethan  period,  for  example, 
would  fail  to  draw."  The  finest  productions  do  draw, 


*  See   some   striking  particulars  under  this  head  in  Mr. 
Masson's  admirable  study  of  Milton's  life. 


280  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

whenever  played ;  the  inferior  productions  either  fail, 
because  they  are  ill-constructed  and  verbose,  or  are 
suppressed,  because  they  are  grossly  indecent  in 
subject  and  in  language.  There  is  an  actor  who 
parades  the  provinces,  Mr.  Barry  Sullivan,  a  very 
clever  performer  of  the  old  school,  who  succeeds  so 
wonderfully,  that  a  "  Barry  Sullivan  house"  represents 
the  fullest  triumph  of  the  managerial  exchequer ; 
yet  Mr.  Sullivan's  repertoire  consists  chiefly  of 
Shakespeare ;  his  leading  parts  are  Hamlet,  Richard, 
and  Othello.  The  late  Mr.  Charles  Kean,  though  by 
no  means  a  first-class  actor,  made  a  fortune  by 
Shakespeare.  Many  other  obscurer  stars  do  likewise. 
By  his  revival  of  a  dull  play,  Henry  V.,  Mr.  Calvert, 
of  Manchester,  achieved  great  successes,  both  in  our 
provinces  and  in  New  York.  Shakespeare,  then, 
is  amusing,  after  all.  What  the  public  find  in  Shake- 
speare, they  would  find  in  any  writer  of  kindred 
endowments.  They  do  not  want  dull  plays  written 
for  students  by  students,  by  poets  for  poets;  they 
want  the  living,  breathing  drama,  whether  in  the 
shape  of  a  play  by  the  great  master,  or  a  trifle  by 
Robertson  ;  they  want  good  construction,  good 
situation,  fair  insight  into  character,  lively  dialogue. 
When  a  play,  with  these  qualifications,  fairly  re- 
presented, fails,  it  will  be  time  to  talk  of  the 
indifference  of  the  public.  True,  as  I  said  at  the 
outset,  audiences  are  uneducated  ;  it  should  be  the 
task  of  dramatists  to  educate  them — to  guide  their 
taste,  which  is  on  the  whole  excellent,  into  regular 
channels  of  legitimate  enjoyment. 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  281 

II. 
A   NOTE  IN    1886. 

SINCE  the  preceding  notes  were  written,  there  has 
been  little  or  no  alteration  in  the  condition  and 
prospects  of  the  modern  stage.  Two  phenomena, 
however,  have  occurred,  which  are  likely  sooner 
or  later  to  be  noted  as  more  or  less  historical ; 
(i)  The  triumphant  progress  of  Mr.  Irving,  followed 
somewhat  timidly  by  Mr.  Wilson  Barrett  and  others, 
under  the  banner  richly  scrolled  with  the  words 
"  poetical  "  and  "  legitimate  ;"  and  (2)  the  successful 
cynicism  of  Mr.  W.  S.  Gilbert,  exhibited  in  the  pro- 
duction of  pieces  which  are,  in  the  most  literal 
sense,  anti-poetical.  Of  Mr.  Irving  and  his  compeers 
I  need  say  little.  They  are  fighting  the  good  fight, 
and  conquering  fresh  territory  every  day.  Of  Mr. 
Gilbert  I  am  inclined  to  say  a  few  words,  since  there 
is  a  large  section  of  the  play-going  public  ready  to 
accept  him  as  the  typical  playwright  of  the  present 
period. 

In  the  first  place,  let  me  observe  that  Mr.  Gilbert, 
despite  all  his  boasted  cynicism,  has  been  on  more 
than  one  occasion  a  backslider. 

In  his  bewilderment  as  to  what  is  and  is  not 
literature,  in  his  incapacity  to  perceive  that  a  prettily- 
acted  modern  play,  like  Arrak-na-Pogue,  is  better 
than  the  best  imitation  or  resuscitation  of  effete 
poetical  models,  he  has  shown  curious  misconceptions, 
among  the  most  pathetic  of  which  is  his  idea  that 
a  drama  written  in  so-called  "  blank  verse "  is  of 
necessity  an  attempt  in  the  right  direction.  This 
misconception  is  curious  in  a  dramatist  who  is 
radically  unpoetic,  and  who  has  no-  more  call  to 


282  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

write  blank  verse  than  a  nimble  dancer  has  a  call  to 
use  wooden  legs.  Thanks  chiefly  to  such  encourage- 
ment, Mr.  Gilbert,  who  is  well  known  as  a  grim 
wag  and  a  most  amusing  writer  of  dramatic  trifles, 
set  to  work  the  other  day  to  write  a  play  on  the 
subject  of  Goethe's  Faust,  or,  to  quote  his  own  words, 
"  to  remodel,  for  dramatic  purposes,  the  whole  story 
of  Gretchen's  downfall."  I  quite  acquit  Mr.  Gilbert 
(to  quote  his  own  words  again)  "of  intentional  ir- 
reverence towards  the  grandest  philosophical  work  of 
the  century." 

Good  in  his  blindness,  he  in  goodness  erred. 

But  his  blunder  was  not  in  attempting  to  reach  the 
poetical  standard,  but  in  falling  almost  wilfully 
below  it.  His  Gretchen  failed,  not  because  it  was 
literary,  but  because  it  was  dull  ;  not  because  it  re- 
sembled Goethe's  Faiist,  but  because  it  possessed  no 
portion  of  Goethe's  magic.  The  first  part  of  Goethe's 
Faust  has  been  classed  among  the  great  literary 
successes  of  the  world,  not  because  (as  Mr.  Gilbert, 
speaking  in  the  name  of  the  provincial,  or  theatrical, 
mind  would  think)  it  is  "the  greatest  philosophical 
work  of  the  century,"  but  because  it  is  broadly  and 
simply  human,  based  on  the  commonest  elements  of 
human  nature.  It  is  beautiful  because  it  is  crystalline; 
it  incarnates  the  sentiment  of  humanity,  irradiated  by 
the  passionate  poetical  light.  As  a  story  it  has  an 
appeal  to  everybody,  even  to  the  theatre-goer,  and  if 
Mr.  Gilbert,  instead  of  tampering  with  it,  had  simply 
arranged  its  best  scenes  in  their  dramatic  sequence, 
he  would  have  certainly  succeeded  in  arousing  the 
public  interest  and  securing  the  public  applause. 

Rash   in    his   endeavour  to  justify   himself,    Mr. 
Gilbert   appealed  straight  to  the  literary  public   by 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  283 

publishing  his  play.  Some  of  his  critics  seem  to  have 
told  him  that  it  was  too  "  poetical "  to  succeed  on  the 
modern  stage,  and  failed  in  consequence  of  its 
superiority.  This  is  an  error.  For  once  playgoers  re- 
sented a  provincial  interpretation  of  a  literary  master- 
piece ;  they  did  so,  however,  not  because  the  piece  was 
provincial,  but  because  its  provincialism  was  dreary. 
In  Mr.  Gilbert's  play  Faust  is  transformed  into  a 
very  uninteresting  monk,  Mephistopheles  into  a  talker 
of  comic  journal  satire,  and  Margaret  into  a  mincing 
young  lady  who  lives  and  dies  the  mere  echo  of  a 
monotone.  On  his  first  appearance  Mephisto  (as 
Mr.  Gilbert  calls  .him)  says,  with  an  eye  to  the 
gods: 

You  see 

We  devils  have  our  consciences.     In  vice 
We  can  do  nearly  all  that  man  can  do, 
But  not  quite  all.     There  are  some  forms  of  sin 
From  which  we  shrink,  and  that  is  one  of  them. 
I  have  no  stomach  for  such  worldly  work, 
But  get  a  man  to  help  you. 

This,  of  course,  is  thoroughly  provincial,  thoroughly 
undevilish,  but  sure  of  a  guffaw  from  the  gallery* 
The  character  of  Gretchen  is  pitched  in  the  same 
key.  Just  as  Mephisto  poses  as  a  dry  dog,  fond  of 
his  joke,  does  she  pose  as  the  incarnation  of  pretty 
virginity.  She  is,  in  fact,  Miss  Marion  Terry,  the 
very  charming  but  particularly  monotonous  young 
lady  who  created  the  part,  and  to  whom  the  published 
play  is  dedicated.  Throughout  the  whole  drama  we 
never  escape  into  the  free  air  of  passion  and  poetry ; 
we  are  encumbered  at  every  step  by  the  mannerisms 
and  platitudes  of  the  boarding-school  ideal.  Goethe's 
Marguerite  is  supremely  and  essentially  a  woman. 
PVom  the  moment  when  she  tries  on  the  jewels 
before  the  glass  to  the  hour  when  she  dies  raving 


284  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

mad  in  gaol,  she  is  splendid  and  sublime  by  sheer 
force  of  typical  womanhood.  Her  strength  is  that 
unconscious  purity  which  comes  of  a  soul  thoroughly 
and  simply  human  in  all  its  passions,  sorrows,  and 
desires.  This  other  Marguerite,  or  Gretchen,  is  a 
living  doll,  a  thing  of  self-consciousness,  simpers,  and 
sawdust.  When  she  dies  in  the  atmosphere  of  poetry, 
with  a  stage  sunrise  reddening  behind  her,  she  says  : 

Heaven  wills  that  thou  should'st  live — that  I  should  die — 
So  let  us  yield  ourselves  to  heaven's  will. 

The  provincial  mind  is  as  fond  of  talking  about 
"  Heaven's  will,"  as  of  that  other  "little  article"  (as 
Mr.  Toole  called  it  once  in  a  comedy  by  Mr.  Reade), 
"  a  father's  curse." 

I  have  made  no  quotations  from  Mr.  Gilbert's 
play,  because  there  are  no  passages  to  repay  quo- 
tation. The  best  speech  is  one  by  Mephisto  in  the 
third  act,  where  he  calls  down  the  curse  of  hell  upon 
Faust's  head  ;  but  even  this  is  disfigured  by  con- 
ventional expressions — "  false  priest,"  "  lying  trade," 
"  smug-faced  brotherhood,"  "  chicken-soul,"  and  other 
jargon  of  the  theatre.  What  is  most  extraordinary 
in  the  work,  as  the  production  of  the  dramatist  by 
profession,  is  its  utter  negation  of  all  dramatic  effect ; 
•even  when  the  situations  are  good,  they  are  lost  by 
want  of  technical  skill.  Mr.  Gilbert  shines  as  a  writer 
of  theatrical  trifles,  where  dramatic  insight  is  not 
wanted.  He  is  a  wag,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  a 
comic  poet,  and  I  much  like  his  adaptation  to  the 
stage  of  his  own  "Bab  Ballads."  But  he  has  not 
even  mastered  the  poetic  vocabulary,  and  I  trust 
Gretchen  will  be  his  last  experiment  in  what  writers 
call  the  "  modern  poetical  drama." 

It  has  remained  for  Mr.  Irving,  in  his  position  of 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  285 

champion  extraordinary  of  the  poetical  drama,  to 
exhibit  before  audiences  bewildered  by  Mr.  Gilbert, 
a  play  which  adumbrates,  with  all  its  shortcomings, 
the  true  Faust  of  Goethe,  which  possesses  the  soul  of 
poetry,  though  not  its  language  ;  which,  when  all  is 
said  and  done,  is  worth  a  thousand  such  futilities  as 
Gretchen ;  and  which,  above  all,  supplies  the  one 
imaginative  manager-actor  of  this  generation  with  a 
rdle  which  absorbs  the  full  resources  of  his  undoubted 
artistic  genius.  It  is  little  wonder,  therefore,  that  the 
critics  have  taken  heart  of  grace,  and  talked  again 
hopefully,  if  mysteriously,  of  a  possible  "  dramatic 
revival." 

Periodically,  say  every  five  years,  the  great 
English-speaking  public  is  startled  by  the  eager 
voice  of  the  quidnunc,  announcing  this  prospect. 
Periodically,  the  voice  dies  away  among  other  voices 
of  the  crowd,  while  the  dear  old  moribund  drama 
continues  in  its  corpse-like  coma,  with  spasmodic 
quickenings  of  death  in  life.  When  Robertson  loomed 
above  the  horizon,  the  world  prepared  for  something 
cosmic,  only  to  discover  that  what  it  imagined  to  be  a 
sun  was  a  sort  of  gigantic  tea-cup.  When  Boucicault 
rose  radiant  out  of  the  sea  of  Irish  woes,  there  was 
another  portent,  but  what  onlookers  at  first  mistook 
for  a  potent  magician's  wand,  turned  out  to  be  only 
— a  shillelah.  Meantime,  the  accomplished  author 
of  Pinafore,  like  a  facetious  Choragus  of  Choragi, 
has  amused  himself  by  poking  fun  at  the  Shape  that 
once  lived  and  moved  and  spoke  the  tongue  of 
Shakespeare,  by  ridiculing  its  sock  and  buskin,  by 
deriding  its  antique  method,  so  persistently  and 
so  cleverly,  with  such  a  touch  of  Aristophanes-plus- 
Mr.  Guppy  and  the  "jolly  bank-holiday-every-day 
young  man" — that  it  has  been  a  dangerous  thing 


286  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

for  any  dramatist  to  view  life  seriously  or  sentiment- 
ally, or  to  attempt  the  grand  manner  so  familiar  to 
our  fathers.  Against  the  influence  of  sad  wags  like 
Mr.  Gilbert,  we  have  to  set  such  phenomena  as  the 
beautiful  "revivals"  of  Mr.  Irving,  which  have 
reminded  playgoers  that  after  all  there  is  a  grand 
manner,  and  that  it  is  a  little  better,  when  all  is  said 
and  done,  than  the  manner  of  the  middle-class  cynic. 
But  to  do  Mr.  Gilbert  justice  (and  no  one  is  a 
warmer  admirer  of  his  saturnine  humour  than  I  am), 
his  influence  for  good  in  this  generation  has,  at  least, 
equalled  his  influence  for  evil.  He  might  be  de- 
scribed, with  some  measure  of  truth,  as  the  Mark 
Twain  of  the  stage  ;  for  while  the  American  humour- 
ist has  succeeded  in  disintegrating  so  much  of  the 
shallow  enthusiasm  and  false  sentiment  of  ordinary 
life,  the  English  one  has  done  the  same  service  in 
destroying  what  was  false  and  meretricious  in 
dramatic  tradition.  True,  he  has  gone  to  the  extreme 
length  in  disillusionising  the  public  sentiment  as 
to  all  the  higher  dramatic  emotions  ;  but  that  was 
inevitable,  and  the  question  will  adjust  itself  by-and- 
by,  since  those  emotions  are  practically  indestructible. 
As  the  matter  now  stands,  any  attempt  at  pure  poetry 
on  the  stage  is  very  like  skating  on  thin  ice.  There 
can  be  no  doubt,  nevertheless,  that  our  grandfathers 
very  often  took  platitude  for  poetry  and  heroic  pos- 
turing for  the  acting  of  nature.  A  modern  dramatist 
or  actor  must  now  reckon  on  a  public  prepared  at 
all  points  to  dispute  and  ridicule  his  method  wherever 
it  conflicts  with  common-sense.  Love  is  not  a  passion 
a  la  mode,  and  there  is  a  tendency  to  "guy"  love 
scenes.  Strong  exhibitions  of  emotion  are  unpopular 
in  real  life  and  equally  so  in  the  theatre.  At  the 
same  time  the  swift  inspiration  of  genius  can  conque1" 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  287 

the  prejudice  against  the  sentiment  of  love,  or  rather 
against  its  too  maudlin  expression,  and  justify  the 
strongest  and  wildest  of  emotions  under  the  right 
conditions. 

Besides  the  revival  of  poetical  drama,  real  or  so- 
called,  there  has  of  late  years  been  a  revival  of 
melodrama.  Mr.  Sims,  Mr.  Pettitt,  and  Mr.  Jones 
have  produced  alone,  or  in  collaboration,  a  number  of 
bright  and  panoramic  plays  of  human  life.  Mr.  Sims 
possesses  a  true  literary  talent  and  a  fine  vein  of 
workaday  humour.  Mr.  Pettitt  stands  alone  as  a 
dramatic  "  constructor."  Mr.  Jones  appears  to  have 
lofty  aims  and  praiseworthy  literary  pretensions, 
while  openly  despising  the  craft  in  which  he  has 
sought  for  popularity.  That  the  critics  are  eager 
to  discover  literary  merit  wherever  they  can  is  shown 
by  their  lavish  praise  of  the  following  passage  from 
the  Silver  King,  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  rehabilitated 
drunkard  and  betting  man  : 

O  God,  put  back  thy  universe  and  give  me  yesterday ! 

Curiously  enough,  what  is  food  for  mirth  to  one 
generation  becomes  actual  poetry  to  another,  since 
the  passage  I  have  quoted  is  simply  a  paraphrase 
of  the  famous  lines  given  by  Martinus  Scriblerus,  in 
the  "  Art  of  Sinking  in  Poetry  "  : 

O  God,  annihilate  both  space  and  time, 
And  make  two  lovers  happy  ! 

If  it  were  my  wish  or  my  business  to  find  fault  with 
Mr.  Jones,  I  should  say  that  he  possesses  one  serious 
fault  in  a  dramatist — that  of  sometimes  mistaking 
"fine  writing"  for  literature;  but  of  his  earnestness 
there  is  no  question. 

Besides     the     gentlemen     I    have    named,     Mr. 
Sydney  Grundy   and   Mr.  Pinero   are   now  diligent 


288  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

contributors  to  public  entertainment.  Mr.  Grundy 
is  a  brilliant  and  an  able  dramatist,  with  an  unique 
capacity  for  writing  trenchant  dialogue,  and  it  may 
be  confidently  predicted  that  he  will  take  a  high 
place  among  contemporaries,  if  ever  plays  are  judged 
on  their  merits  as  literature.  Mr.  Pinero  seems  to  be 
a  pupil  of  Mr.  Gilbert's,  without  his  master's  cunning, 
but  with  much  of  his  disagreeable  cynicism.  Another 
writer  of  note,  Mr.  Clement  Scott,  though  better 
known  as  a  critic,  has  done  excellent  work  for  the 
stage,  both  singly  and  in  collaboration  with  Mr.  B.  C. 
Stephenson.  Diplomacy  was  an  admirable  piece  of 
rendition,  and  there  was  great  ingenuity  shown  in 
Peril.  I  have  not  seen  Sister  Mary,  but  I  hear  it 
spoken  of  as  a  vigorous  attempt  at  purely  emotional 
drama. 

While  the  drama  remains  moribund,  the  world  is 
full  of  actors  who  may  fairly  be  accounted  virile.  It 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  greatest  of  these 
actors  are  Americans.  On  this  side  of  the  water 
we  have  no  artists,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Irving, 
worthy  to  rank  by  the  side  of  Booth,  of  Jefferson,  of 
Lester  Wallack.  Even  to  an  Englishman  familiar 
with  the  finest  efforts  of  Charles  Mathews,  the  acting 
of  the  younger  Wallack  comes  with  all  the  force  of  a 
revelation.  I  saw  this  princely  comedian  for  the  first 
time  in  The  Bachelor  of  Arts.  He  had  long  been  to 
me  an  illustrious  name,  one  of  the  few  American 
names  known  by  familiar  report  on  this  side,  but 
I  had  imagined  him  one  of  the  "  old  school,"  in  the 
Gilbertian  and  invidious  sense.  Of  the  old  school 
he  is  certainly,  in  so  far  as  his  method  puts  all  the 
efforts  of  the  new  school  to  shame ;  at  once  broad, 
subtle,  swift,  and  penetrating,  it  is  the  method  of 
the  born  actor,  equipped  with  all  the  culture  of  his 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  289 

fascinating  art.  Nowadays,  I  fear,  actors  are  made, 
not  born,  and  made  very  badly.  Young  men  flock 
upon  the  stage  because  it  has  become  a  lucrative 
profession.  Formerly  only  those  achieved  histrionic 
reputation  who  possessed  by  nature  a  commanding, 
an  interesting,  or  an  amusing  personality.  Nature, 
even  more  than  art,  created,  in  their  various  lines  of 
character,  Mrs.  Siddons,  the  Kembles,  Macready, 
Kean,  Harley,  Robson,  Charles  Mathews,  Buck- 
stone,  Keeley,  Compton,  Wigan,  and  Walter  Lacy. 
Not  but  that  the  same  kind  of  creation  takes  place 
occasionally  even  now.  Nature,  far  more  than  art, 
has  given  us  Ellen  Terry. 

The  fact  remains,  however,  that  modern  actors 
generally  suggest  the  idea  of  professionals  who  have 
mistaken  their  profession.  Let  any  one  who  doubts 
this  go  to  Wallaces  when  the  master  is  acting,  and 
compare  him  with  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  who 
surround  him.  There  are  clever  people  among  them, 
but,  with  the  exception  of  the  tried  veteran,  John 
Gilbert,  they  strike  the  spectator  as  people  who  act 
to  live,  not  live  to  act.  In  companies  where  there 
is  no  star  of  the  first  magnitude,  the  effect,  of  course, 
is  different.  At  Daly's,  for  example,  there  is  a 
combination  so  admirable  in  ensemble,  so  full  of 
natural  talent  and  acquired  fitness,  so  excellently 
guided  and  directed,  that  it  became  last  summer 
the  talk  of  London.  Nearly  every  member  of  the 
company  has  been  chosen  for  his  natural  acting  gifts, 
and  from  officers  to  rank  and  file,  the  whole  regiment 
is  fit  for  the  field,  and  magnificently  manoeuvred. 

In  England  nowadays,  I  regret  to  say,  the  ten- 
dency to  what  may  be  called,  rather  Irishly,  pro- 
fessional amateurism,  is  much  more  marked  than  in 
America.  It  began  with  the  Robertsonian  successes, 

u 


290  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

which  in  their  excessive  and  somewhat  insipid 
naturalism  called  into  existence  very  little  first-class 
talent,  but  opened  the  stage  door  to  hundreds  of 
average  young  men  and  women.  Here  and  there, 
but  almost  by  accident,  an  artist  of  distinction  ap- 
peared to  break  the  genteel  monotony  of  the  per- 
formances at  the  Prince  of  Wales'  Theatre ;  there 
were  brightness  and  natural  gaiety  in  Marie  Wilton, 
rich  humour  in  George  Honey,  a  pretty  kind  of  talent 
for  grasping  small  bits  of  character,  in  Mr.  Hare. 
But  when  the  Prince  of  Wales  comedians  exhausted 
Robertson  and  removed  to  the  large  stage  of  the 
Haymarket  Theatre,  it  was  plain  that  they  were 
little  more  than  amateurs  after  all.  A  cruder 
exhibition  than  the  performance  of  Masks  and 
Faces  was  certainly  never  seen  on  the  amateur 
stage ;  and  The  Rivals,  as  we  all  know,  was 
even  worse.  The  public  yearned  for  the  old 
methods,  and  found  them  not  very  far  off,  at  the 
Lyceum. 

I  am  far  from  suggesting,  as  many  do,  that  the 
loss  of  the  fine  old  crusted  performer  of  the  past 
generation,  the  performer  who  played  half-a-dozen 
parts  a  week  with  more  or  less  incoherence,  is  a  thing 
to  be  deplored,  or  that  the  inroad  of  good-looking 
walking  gentlemen  has  been  wholly  without  its  advan- 
tages. Actors,  nowadays,  take  pains  to  be  natural, 
they  conduct  themselves  like  gentlemen  on  and  off 
the  stage,  they  dress  well  and  appropriately,  they 
seldom  over-act  or  murder  the  Queen's  English.  But 
all  this  improvement,  consequent  on  managerial  re- 
cruiting among  penniless  dukes  and  impecunious 
earls,  will  not  compensate  for  the  genius,  the  natural 
adaptability,  which  used  to  be  the  actor's  distinguish- 
ing qualification,  or  for  the  boldness  and  fearlessness 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  291 

of  method,  which  made  tragedy  tolerable  and  comedy 
puissant.  Turn  again  to  Lester  Wallack,  and  see 
him  step  upon  the  stage;  then  turn  to  any  of  our 
modern  interpreters  of  comedy,  and  note  the  dif- 
ference. The  secret  of  the  power  and  fascination  is, 
that  this  man  is  the  part  he  plays  ;  that  nature, 
in  Lester  Wallack,  created  the  physical  and  intel- 
lectual type  fit  to  wear  the  idiosyncracy  of  Charles 
Courtley,  of  Harry  Jasper,  of  D'Artagnan,  of  Don 
Caesar  de  Bazan.  Ars  est  celare  artem  ;  the  art  is  not 
manifest,  because  Nature  herself  is  potent  in  estab- 
lishing the  verisimilitude.  The  finest  of  all  acting, 
indeed,  resolves  into  another  Irishism — that,  au  fond, 
there  is  very  little  acting  about  it.  Fechter  in  his 
young  days  was  Armand  Duval,  Descle"e  was  Camille, 
Lemaitre  was  Robert  Macaire,  Robson  was  Sampson 
Burr,  Buckstone  was  Toby  Twinkle,  Compton  was 
Touchstone,  Helen  Faucit  was  Cordelia,  and  so  on 
all  the  world  over.  Natural  fitness,  plus  the  many 
resources  and  practices  of  the  art,  is  what  constitutes 
the  true  actor. 

In  England  this  fact  is  understood,  perhaps,  in 
only  one  direction.  I  have  long  wondered  what 
quality  it  is  in  the  English  atmosphere,  or  in  the 
English  constitution,  which  breeds  so  many  genuine 
"  comedians."  On  the  soil  of  America,  so  far  as 
I  have  seen,  they  do  not  thrive ;  yet  in  England 
their  name  has  been  and  is  legion.  Harley,  Buck- 
stone,  Compton,  Robson,  Wright,  Toole,  Righton, 
Lionel  Brough,  George  Honey,  David  James,  Thomas 
Thorne,  George  Barrett,  are  names  that  will  occur 
at  once  to  many.  The  humour  of  each  of  these  per- 
formers was,  or  is,  something  sni  generis^  but  there  is 
a  family  likeness  in  it  all,  indeed,  a  Cockney  likeness. 
In  other  branches  of  the  business  England  is  not  so 

u  2 


292  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

excellent.  It  is  doubtful,  for  example,  if  we  possess 
a  really  first-class  "juvenile"  performer.  Henry 
Neville — whose  first  appearance  caused  Planche*  to 
leap  out  of  his  seat  and  cry,  "  At  last  we  have  an 
actor !  " — is  still  perhaps  the  best,  despite  his  years, 
which  he  carries  very  lightly.  Charles  Coghlan  has 
great  talent,  but  is  unequal  and  very  weak  in  scenes 
of  passion,  where  Neville  is  strong.  Kyrle  Bellew 
has  shown  abundant  promise,  but  is  somewhat  too 
self-conscious  and  artificial ;  while  Harry  Conway, 
who  began  as  the  very  weakest  of  walking  gentlemen, 
has  lately  shown  remarkable  earnestness  and  latent 
strength.  In  personal  attractiveness,  William  Terriss 
is  the  most  endowed  of  them  all. 

The  same  lack  of  genius  which  is  the  fault  of  our 
juvenile  actors,  is  to  be  found  among  our  actresses. 
In  scenes  of  power  and  passion,  even  Ellen  Terry 
loses  much  of  her  charm.  Mrs.  Kendal  is  an  inimit- 
able comedienne,  but  quite  without  the  pathetic  fallacy 
in  romantic  and  poetical  characters,  which  she  has 
sometimes  attempted.  Her  Pauline,  in  the  Lady  of 
Lyons,  is  not  a  high-born  beauty  in  distress,  but  a 
housemaid  in  a  passion  ;  her  Claire,  in  the  Ironmaster, 
is  strenuously  artificial  in  its  pathetic  solicitations. 
In  pure  comedy,  however,  Mrs.  Kendal  is  supremely 
delightful.  Much  her  superior  in  the  higher  graces 
of  the  art  is  Madame  Modjeska,  a  somewhat  arti- 
ficial but  exquisitely  refined  actress.  Miss  Ada 
Cavendish,  though  inferior  in  her  method,  has  really 
inspired  moments.  The  original  freshness  and  sweet 
girlish  grace  of  Miss  Kate  Rorke  surpass  all  the 
attitudinising  of  more  pretentious  actresses.  Mrs. 
Langtry  is  Venus  from  foot  to  forehead.  Miss  Mary 
Anderson  is  stridently  juvenile,  but  splendidly  beau- 
tiful. Passing  away  from  leading  ladies,  we  have 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  293 

ingenues  by  the  score,  and  soubrettes  by  the  dozen  ; 
one  of  the  brightest  of  the  latter  being  Miss  Lottie 
Venne,  an  inimitable  actress  in  her  own  peculiar  line. 
Glancing  downward  through  the  ranks  of  the  profes- 
sion, we  shall  discover  that  the  most  noticeable  artists 
are  those  who  follow  the  good  old  method.  There  is 
Mr.  Mead,  whom  I  remember  playing  the  whole 
range  of  the  drama  years  ago  at  the  Grecian  ;  Mr. 
Howe,  who  graduated  in  the  robustly  vigorous  Hay- 
market  school;  Mr.  Willard  and  Mr.  Speakman, 
both  in  Wilson  Barrett's  company ;  Mr.  Hermann 
Vezin,  perhaps  the  finest  elocutionist  living,  and 
consummately  excellent  when  suited ;  Mr.  Charles 
Warner,  full  of  electricity  and  splendid  animal  spirits; 
Mr.  Fernandez,  excellent  in  everything,  but  especially 
excellent  in  strong,  rugged  character  studies ;  and 
Mr.  Odell,  who  has  a  quiddity  and  oddity  peculiarly 
his  own.  All  the  artists  I  have  named  are  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  mob  of  gentlemen  of  the  new 
school,  who  get  upon  the  stage  with  ease,  and  act 
without  intellectual  conviction. 

Why  is  it,  then,  that,  with  so  many  capable  artists, 
and  so  warm  an  appreciation  of  their  talents  on  the 
part  of  the  public,  we  have  so  few  virile  plays  ?  Be- 
cause there  are  no  great  dramatic  authors,  say  the 
critics.  Because  the  managers  are  uninstructed,  say 
the  playwrights.  Because  the  public  is  a  great  silly 
baby,  to  be  pleased  with  a  rattle,  tickled  with  a  straw, 
say  the  managers. 

It  may  be  quite  true  that  we  have  no  great 
dramatists,  but  it  is  also  true  that  we  have  among  us 
men  capable  of  splendid  dramatic  work,  if  such  work 
were  in  demand  ;  not  only  within  the  circle  of  known 
writers  for  the  stage,  but  outside  of  it,  are  such  men 
to  be  found.  But  it  is  simply  impossible  to  ensure 


294  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  production  of  any  drama  which  is  not,  to  a  certain 
extent,  conventional  after  the  known  and  approved 
fashions.  The  enormous  outlay  necessary  in  London 
to  mount  an  important  piece,  the  loss  consequent  on 
failure,  the  apathy  of  the  public  to  new  ideas  of  any 
kind,  frighten  the  managers  from  making  experi- 
ments. When  Claudian  was  produced  in  London, 
everybody  anticipated  failure  because  it  dealt  with  an 
ideal  and  far-off  subject ;  and  Mr.  Barrett,  himself, 
though  a  most  enlightened  manager  and  actor,  had 
so  holy  a  fear  of  the  mere  mention  of  "  blank  verse," 
that  he  caused  the  piece  to  be  written  in  a  sort  of 
hybrid  lingo,  neither  verse  nor  good  prose,  which 
utterly  destroyed  its  value  as  literature.  At  a  huge 
sacrifice  of  time  and  money,  the  play  was  forced 
along,  till  at  last  its  novelty  and  beauty  were  recog- 
nised. Here,  however,  the  circumstances  were  very 
exceptional ;  and  moreover,  Claudian  furnished  a  star 
part  for  a  manager  of  ample  resources.  Under  any 
other  conditions,  the  piece  would  have  been  with- 
drawn within  a  month.  My  own  experience,  which 
I  may  cite  by  way  of  illustration,  is  the  experience  of 
nearly  every  dramatic  author  living.  Having  an 
intimate  and  practical  knowledge  of  stage  require- 
ments, acquired  through  early  connection  with  the 
theatre,  I  find  it  possible  to  produce  pieces  which 
please  the  manager,  and  sometimes  the  public ;  but 
whenever  I  have  proposed  any  drama  lofty  in  method 
or  unconventional  in  form,  I  have  been  met  with 
the  answer  that  such  productions  are  inexpedient. 
Management  is  too  precarious  a  business  for  experi- 
ments of  any  kind. 

Then  again,  it  is  very  difficult  indeed  to  please 
both  the  critics  and  the  public,  and  what  pleases  one 
will  often  repel  the  other.  Nor  are  critics  always 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  295 

unanimous.  Two  plays  of  mine,  produced  in  London 
and  afterwards  repeated  successfully  in  America,  met 
with  exactly  opposite  treatment  from  the  newspapers 
here  and  on  the  other  s;dc.  Storm-beaten  (an  adapta- 
tion of  my  own  novel,  "God  and  the  Man")  was 
received  with  no  little  praise  by  the  leading  critics 
of  London  ;  in  New  York  it  was  roundly  slaughtered 
in  several  quarters.  On  the  other  hand,  Lady  Clare, 
which  some  London  critics  treated  coldly,  and  which 
gained  its  success  in  London  in  the  face  of  lukewarm 
criticism,  was  praised  liberally  by  the  American  Press, 
.almost  without  an  exception. 

It  is  the  custom  in  London,  and  often  a  sheer 
necessity,  to  force  plays  into  success  by  large  expendi- 
tures of  money,  and  in  the  teeth  of  disastrous  business. 
For  many  weeks  Pinafore,  the  most  successful  of 
modern  comic  oper^,  played  fo  quite  inadequate 
receipts  ;  so,  I  am  informed,  did  the  Colleen  Bawn. 
The  Private  Secretary,  when  acted  at  the  Prince's 
Theatre,  involved  the  author  in  a  loss  of  some 
thousands  of  pounds  ;  but  he  held  firmly  on  to  it, 
and  transferring  it  to  the  Globe,  reaped  a  late  but 
abundant  harvest.  Of  course  this  can  only  be  done 
•where  the  play  possesses  great  vitality  in  itself,  or 
where  the  management  is  unusually  sanguine  and 
•determined.  It  is  seldom  or  never,  I  believe,  done 
in  America,  where  pieces  stand  or  fall  by  a  first 
night's  reception,  and  by  the  perfunctory  morning 
criticism.  The  exceptions  are  cases  where  the  play 
is  produced  with  an  ultimate  eye  to  the  "  road," 
rather  than  with  any  view  of  immediately  making 
money. 

I  have  touched  upon  the  commercial  side  of  the 
matter,  because,  in  dramatic  work,  there  is  no  golden 
mean  between  success  and  failure.  A  play  is  con- 


296  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

demned  absolutely,  if  it  does  not  prove  managerially 
profitable;  no  matter  what  its  literary  or  technical 
merit,  no  matter  how  warm  its  reception,  it  is 
justified  or  condemned  by  the  amount  of  money  paid 
by  audiences  who  wish  to  see  it.  Now,  modern 
audiences  are  mixed  assemblages  of  men,  women, 
and  even  children.  When  a  great  drama  flourished 
in  England,  playgoers  were  different,  ready  to  respond 
to  any  kind  of  method,  however  daring,  if  it  was 
justified  by  its  cleverness;  and  if  a  prude  sat  listening 
under  the  rain  or  sunlight,  her  blushes  were  hidden  by 
a  mask.  Later  on,  when  we  had  a  superb  comedy, 
great  in  spite  of  its  license,  the  conditions  were  the 
same ;  the  subjects  were  selected  without  tremor,  the 
treatment  was  slapdash,  the  speech  vehement,  reck- 
less, and  bold.  It  is  too  late  in  the  day  to  reproduce 
these  conditions,  nor  am  I  suggesting  for  a  moment 
that  their  reproduction  would  be  desirable.  How  far 
indiscriminate  license  may  degrade  and  even  emascu- 
late art  may  be  seen  any  night  in  Paris  at  the  Palais 
Royal.  But  it  is  obvious  at  a  glance  that  a  dramatist 
writing  for  a  mixed  modern  audience,  with  Mr.  and 
Miss  Podsnap  in  the  stalls,  must  choose  his  subjects 
carefully  and  treat  them  very  gingerly.  Were  he  a 
very  Sophocles,  he  would  have  to  eschew  the  story  of 
CEdipus;  were  he  an  Euripides,  he  would  have  ta 
fight  shy  of  the  domestic  life  of  Phaedra.  He  must, 
in  short,  to  be  listened  to  at  all,  avoid  all  offence 
against  moral  and  religious  prejudices,  follow  the 
conventional  ethics,  humour  the  popular  creeds,  use 
language  easily  intelligible  to  immature  persons.  He 
must  on  no  account  attempt  to  edify ;  if  he  does,  he 
is  lost,  and  catalogued  as  a  bore. 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  297 

III. 
THE   DRAMA  AND   THE   CENSOR. 

THERE  comes  a  time  in  the  history  of  nearly  every 
great  literary  movement  when  it  is  necessary  for 
some  member  of  the  community  to  protest,  in  the 
name  of  himself  and  in  the  name  of  the  class  to 
which  he  belongs,  against  vexatious  and  quasi- 
providential  interference  from  above.  I  think  that 
time  has  come  in  the  history  of  our  modern  stage, 
where  some  are  pleased  to  perceive  the  dim  dawnings- 
of  a  dramatic  revival ;  and  I  believe  that  I  can  count 
on  the  sympathy  of  readers  of  this  book,  if  in  citing 
certain  experiences  of  my  own  I  take  leave  to  protest 
against  an  authority  very  much  resembling  persecution. 
I  must  premise,  however,  by  saying  that  I  have  no 
private  or  personal  feeling  in  the  matter.  For  the 
present  reader  and  licenser  of  plays,  Mr.  Pigott,  I 
have  the  highest  respect  and  consideration.  Such 
as  his  spiriting  is,  he  does  it  gently  enough.  But  the 
position  he  holds,  and  the  influence  he  brings  to 
bear,  are,  in  my  opinion,  so  fatal  to  the  interests  of 
dramatic  art,  that  it  will  soon  be  expedient  to  inquire 
into  the  true  nature  of  his  authority,  its  legality,  and 
the  prospects  of  its  limitation,  or  best  of  all,  its  total 
suspension. 

There  was  recently  represented  at  the  Adelphi 
Theatre,  a  drama  from  my  pen,  entitled  Storm-beaten, 
and  almost  identical  in  subject  with  my  novel,  "  God 
and  the  Man."  This  drama  contained  (I  say  it  in  all 
humility)  a  central  idea  as  elevated,  as  pre-eminently 
religious,  and  I  may  add  Christian,  as  is  to  be  found, 
perhaps,  in  any  other  drama  of  modern  times;  an  idea 
indeed  embodying  and  adumbrating  the  very  central 


298  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

conception  of  Christianity.  How  it  was  worked  out, 
whatever  might  be  its  literary  shortcomings,  is 
another  matter.  My  point  is  that  the  drama's 
purpose  was  the  very  highest  and  noblest  possible 
from  the  spiritual  point  of  view.  That  it  touched 
the  heart  of  the  public,  both  here  and  in  America, 
where  it  is  still  being  represented,  is  now  pretty  well 
known.  Now  in  this  drama,  as  professedly  ethical 
and  avowedly  religious,  the  name  of  "  God "  was 
used  from  time  to  time — never  profanely,  never  being 
taken  in  vain  ;  that  name  had  even  been  printed 
upon  the  playbill  ;  and  in  the  last  act,  as  the  triumph 
of  Christian  love  and  brotherhood  was  proclaimed, 
the  lovely  Easter  Hymn  of  our  Church  was  sung  by 
the  village  choir.  I  do  not  think  any  truly  religious 
spectator,  whatever  his  creed,  could  witness  Storm- 
beaten,  or  listen  to  the  holy  music  of  its  close,  with 
any  feeling  of  discomfort  or  sense  of  incongruity. 

But  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
traditional  authority,  thought  otherwise.  He  objected 
to  the  mere  mention  of  the  name  of  "God"  in  a  stage 
play,  as  unnecessarily  impious ;  he  resented  the 
printing  of  the  name  of  God  in  a  playbill  as  an 
additional  outrage ;  he  denounced  the  singing  of  the 
Easter  Hymn  on  the  stage  as  a  needless  piece  of 
profanity  ;  and,  finally,  he  hinted  to  the  management 
of  the  theatre  that  their  license  was  in  danger,  if 
these  things  were  not  immediately  reformed,  as,  I 
regret  to  say,  they  speedily  were. 

About  that  time  there  came  to  me  a  letter, 
written,  not  by  any  mere  layman  or  outsider,  but 
by  an  ordained  minister  of  the  Scottish  Church, 
containing  the  following  passage  : 

What  a  wretched  piece  of  official  prudery  that  was  of  the 
Censor  regarding  your  play  !  It  was  good  enough  for  a  religious 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  299 

magazine,  but  too  good  for  a  playbill.  The  Censor's  objection 
implies  that  he  is  the  controller  of  the  Devil's  work.  God  must 
not  be  named  in  the  documents  with  which  lie  has  to  deal. 

This  sarcasm,  though  bitter  enough,  certainly  hit 
the  mark.  The  drama,  according  to  the  Lord 
Chamberlain,  must  be  eternally  divorced  from  the 
Gospel  according  to  any  of  the  Apostles ;  the  religion 
which  animates  our  best  literature  is  to  have  no 
influence  upon  our  stage,  which  is  to  remain,  what  it 
has  remained  from  Shakespeare's  time,  a  mere  ex- 
crescence, a  thing  for  shallow  hearts  and  idle  heads, 
a  spectacle  for  an  hour's  passing  amusement — the 
Devil's  pastime,  and  nothing  more  !  The  same  Censor 
who  is  outraged  at  the  word  "  God "  in  a  playbill, 
would  have  swooned  at  the  face  of  the  "  Holy 
Mother "  on  a  wall ;  and  Raphael  would  have  been 
requested  not  to  paint  Madonnas.  The  same  Censor 
who  is  outraged  by  the  singing  of  a  church  hymn  on 
the  stage,  would  have  been  indignant  at  the  musical 
description  of  God  creating  the  world  out  of  chaos, 
and  Haydn  would  have  been  asked  not  to  compose 
any  more  "  Creations."  Fortunately,  however,  paint- 
ing is  a  free  art,  and  sacred  music  has  no  Lord 
Chamberlain. 

The  question  of  mine  is,  I  hold,  one  on  which  the 
whole  fate  of  the  English  drama  must  depend.  If 
the  art  of  the  dramatist  is  to  be  measured  out  to 
please  the  whim  of  a  Court  functionary,  who  condemns 
the  clothing  of  religious  symbols,  but  approves  the 
nakedness  of  Gaiety  burlesque  ;  if  the  insane  bigotry 
of  the  Church  (with  its  rabid  hatred  of  its  hereditary 
rival,  the  stage)  is  to  cripple  the  dramatist's  work  as 
it  has  done  from  time  immemorial,  the  sooner  we 
cease  talking  about  a  dramatic  "  revival "  the  better. 
Thanks  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  the  whole  marvellous 


300  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

psychological  drama  of  the  French  Empire  has  been 
interdicted  to  us,  while  there  has  been  no  real  inter- 
diction on  the  nudity  of  Chatelet  spectacle  or  the 
ulcerous  corruption  of  the  Palais  Royal.  Thanks  to 
the  Lord  Chamberlain,  great  themes  of  passion  are 
forbidden  to  the  dramatic  poet  and  student  of  human 
nature,  while  the  dramatic  "  Masher "  behind  the 
curtain  has  carte  blanche  to  cater  to  the  taste  of  the 
social  "  Masher "  in  the  stalls.  Thanks  to  the  Lord 
Chamberlain,  our  drama  is  no  drama,  our  art  is  no 
art,  all  the  intent  and  purpose  of  stage  performances 
being  to  amuse  fools  and  chronicle  small  beer.  But 
the  drama,  I  trust,  has  a  higher  function  than  to  please 
a  modern  Petronius  and  pass  away  an  idle  hour. 
It  is  the  noblest  of  all  arts,  and  should  be  the  most 
free ;  and  it  embraces  in  its  scope,  not  merely  its 
kindred  arts  of  poetry,  painting,  music,  but  from  the 
days  of  ^Eschylus  downwards  it  has  held  out  the 
hand  to  Religion,  its  grave  veiled  sister.  To  para- 
phrase again  the  words  of  George  Herbert : 

A  play  may  find  him  who  a  sermon  flies, 
And  turn  delight  into  a  sacrifice  ! 

Not  that  it  is  foredoomed  to  the  heresy  of  mere 
instruction — that  doom  would  be  fatal  to  its  claim  as 
art ;  but  there  is  no  sphere  of  man's  life,  no  phase  of 
man's  religion,  with  which  it  might  not  freely  and 
candidly  deal.  True,  there  is  a  region  of  mystery, 
of  spiritual  sacredness,  where  it  has  never  ventured 
since  the  days  of  the  Greek,  and  there  is  no  need 
that  it  should  venture  there  again.  The  public  is  a 
wise  judge,  a  judge  that  knows  well  with  what  sacred 
means  the  drama  has  a  right  to  deal,  and  what  others 
it  ought  to  let  alone ;  and  I  believe  there  is  no 
public  so  sagacious  as  our  English  play-going  one, 


THE  MODERN  STAGE.  301 

in  resenting  inconsistency,  mere  edification,  or  idle 
profanity.  But  the  dramatist  should  be  able,  like  the 
poet,  like  the  painter,  like  the  musician,  to  go  direct 
before  his  Rhadamanthus,  to  be  condemned  or 
approved,  not  in  the  ante-room,  or  in  darkness,  but  in 
the  broad  daylight  of  the  open  court  of  public  opinion. 
I  know  well  what  arguments  may  be  adduced  by 
the  friends  and  supporters  of  the  Censor  in  support  of 
the  theory  that  a  censorship  of  the  drama  is  necessary  ; 
they  are  the  same  which  have  been  used,  from  one  dark 
age  to  another,  to  suppress  free  thought  and  free 
speech,  and  to  limit  literary  activity.  But  the 
suppression  of  literature  delayed,  from  century  to 
century,  the  spread  of  natural  knowledge,  and  the 
suppression  of  the  drama  (to  compare  small  things 
with  great)  is  likely  to  postpone  indefinitely 
the  resuscitation  of  our  Elizabethan  mummy,  the 
dramatic  Muse — which  is  not  dead,  but  sleeping, 
after  all.  What  man  of  genius  would  care  to  write 
poetry  or  fiction,  if  a  gentleman  in  Court  livery  were 
placed  at  his  shoulder,  pointing  out  the  kind  of 
inspiration  he  thought  expedient  ?  What  painter 
would  care  to  produce  pictures,  what  musician  to 
compose  music,  if  his  work  were  to  be  regulated  by 
the  good  taste  of  a  special  providence,  salaried  by 
the  State  ?  Such  intervention  would  be  the  death 
of  poetry,  painting,  and  music,  as  it  has  been  the 
death  or  syncope  of  the  drama.  But  it  is  with 
the  professors  of  dramatic  art  themselves  that  the 
remedy  lies.  The  timidity  of  the  old  days,  when  the 
actor  was  an  outcast,  still  clings  to  them  ;  they  are 
acquiring  literary  culture,  but  they  still  lack  spiritual 
courage,  so  that  we  see  every  day  the  spectacle  of 
artists  cowering  before  the  bottled  thunder  of  Little 
Bethel,  and  feebly  accepting  the  patronage  which  is 


302  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

an  insult  in  lieu  of  the  homage  which  is  a  right.  Let 
the  truth  be  uttered  :  that  the  Art  which  ^Eschylus 
made  religious,  which  Shakespeare  made  humane, 
which  Moliere  made  reformatory,  must  and  shall  be 
free  ;  that  her  true  place  is  not  at  the  feet  of  Religion , 
but  at  her  side — sometimes  even,  during  times  of  folly 
and  superstition,  in  the  empyrean  above  her  head. 
Abolish  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  and  we  shall  soon 
have  virile  plays.  Free  the  tied  tongue  of  the  stage, 
and  men  of  genius  will  soon  teach  it  the  divine  speech 
of  poetry  and  passion.  But  until  this  thing  is  done, 
until  dramatists  acquire  the  privileges  and  exercise 
the  functions  of  manhood,  the  prospects  of  a  dramatic 
revival,  so  fervently  to  be  wished  for,  must  be  in- 
definitely postponed. 

NOTE. — Since  the  production  of  Storm-beaten  has  come  the 
Lyceum  production  of  Faust,  in  which  religious  forms  and 
expressions  are  freely  and  liberally  used,  and  in  which  the 
Devil  himself  is  a  chief  character.  I  have  not  heard  that  the 
Lord  Chamberlain  has  remonstrated  with  Mr.  Irving  on  the 
"  blasphemous  "  nature  of  his  production,  or  has  requested  him 
to  cut  out  any  of  the  Christian  hymns.  So  that  there  is  one 
law  for  the  Adelphi,  and  another  for  the  Lyceum ;  a  sanction 
for  Goethe,  and  no  sanction  at  all  for  the  contemporary 
dramatist.— R.  B. 


FLOTSAM    AND   JETSAM. 


i. 

A  NOTE  ON  £MILE  ZOLA. 
(1886.) 

As  one  grows  older,  one  wonders  less  at  the  pro- 
verbial philosophy  of  contemporary  criticism.  While 
the  Saturday  Review  still  exists,  though  toothless 
and  moribund,  a  journalistic  Dogberry  proclaiming 
the  watches  of  the  literary  night  to  a  generation  still 
unaware  of  sunrise  and  of  Mr.  Spencer,  there  will 
always  be  a  class  of  readers  which  takes  its  opinions 
on  faith  and  eagerly  echoes  the  anathemas  pronounced 
by  senile  watchmen  against  "  one  Deformed  "  and 
other  disturbers  of  the  public  peace.  We  smile  at 
Dogberry,  though  it  is  sad  to  reflect  that  never  once, 
from  the  beginning  of  his  official  career,  has  he  done 
a  sane  or  a  generous  thing,  has  he  recognised  a 
new  thought  or  a  rising  reputation,  has  he  ceased 
to  regard  all  men  of  genius  as  malefactors,  and  all 
mediocrities  as  men  of  genius.  Among  the  great 
men  of  our  time  who  are  oftenest  "  run  in  "  by  the 
old-fashioned  literary  watch,  perhaps  the  most  phleg- 
matic of  all  is  6mile  Zola.  Despite  a  chorus  of  un- 
instructed  abuse  he  goes  doggedly  on  his  way,  and 


304  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

even  when  hauled  up  before  the  magistrates  he  con- 
tinues to  assert  his  right  of  private  judgment  and 
his  complete  contempt  for  critical  authority.  I  con- 
fess that  I  admire  this  stolid  attitude,  so  different  to 
that  of  most  revolutionaries.  I  confess  that  I  like 
to  see  this  sublime  contempt  for  Dogberry  and 
Verges.  Poor  Thackeray  was  irritated  when  told  by 
the  watch  that  he  was  "no  gentleman.1"  Dickens 
was  actually  angry  when  informed  on  the  same 
authority  that  his  "  Tale  of  Two  Cities "  was  idle 
rubbish.  Nous  avons  changt  tout  cela.  We  are  merely 
amused  when  we  hear  the  old  cry,  "  This  is  your 
charge  :  you  shall  comprehend  all  vagrom  men ;  you 
are  to  bid  any  man  stand,  in  the  Prince's  name." 
It  is  only  when  men  who  should  be  wiser  join  in  the 
persecution  that  one's  amusement  turns  into  indig- 
nation. For  my  own  part  I  am  amazed  as  well  as  in- 
dignant when  Mr.  R.  L.  Stevenson,  who  ought  to  know 
better,  accuses  the  author  of  "  Une  Page  d'Amour" 
of  being  possessed  by  "  erotic  madness ! "  Then  I 
smile  again,  seeing  the  good  Mr.  Howells  from 
Boston,  gentle  apostle  of  man-millinery,  interpose  for 
the  defence,  and  generously  affirm  that  Zola,  though 
a  sad  offender  against  good  taste,  is  a  severe  moralist, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  the  cleverest  Frenchman 
alive ! 

The  fact  is,  Zola  is  to  literature  what  Schopenhauer 
is  to  philosophy — the  preacher  of  a  creed  of  utter 
despair.  No  living  writer  has  a  stronger  and  purer 
sense  of  the  beauty  of  moral  goodness ;  no  living 
man  finds  so  little  goodness  in  the  world  to  awaken 
his  faith  or  enlarge  his  hope.  But  if  Zola  is  "  erotic," 
then  a  demonstrator  of  morbid  anatomy  is  a  sensualist, 
and  a  human  physiologist  is  a  person  of  unclean  pro- 
.clivities.  True  enough,  he  is  conscious,  even  morbidly 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  305 

conscious,  of  the  great  part  which  the  god  Priapus 
plays  in  modern  life,  more  especially  in  those  phases 
of  life  which  are  Parisian.  Everywhere  he  diagnoses 
disease  : 

Disease  and  Anguish  walking  hand  in  hand 

The  downward  slope  to  death ! 

Naturally,  too,  he  is  a  little  unhealthy,  for  the  stench 
of  the  dissecting-room  does  not  conduce  to  vigour. 
But  of  all  men  that  wield  a  pen,  he  is  perhaps  the 
least  "  erotic/'  A  little  "  mad  "  he  may  be,  for, 
after  all,  some  of  us  hold  pessimism  to  be  scarcely 
short  of  madness.  His  hatred  of  sensuality,  his 
loathing  of  vice  in  all  its  forms,  amounts  to  a  passion. 
He  finds,  with  Schopenhauer,  that  human  nature  is 
corrupt  to  the  very  core,  but  he  always  remembers, 
with  Schopenhauer,  that  self-sacrifice  and  spiritual 
love,  where  they  exist,  are  infinitely  beautiful  and 
noble.  To  him,  the  apples  of  the  Hesperides  are 
merest  Dead  Sea  fruit.  To  him  the  god  Eros  is  a 
corpse,  smelling  of  corruption.  To  him,  nevertheless, 
purity  is  a  fact — the  one  grain  of  salt  sprinkled  on 
a  putrefying  world.  As  I  write,  the  face  of  little 
Jeanne,  gazing  out  of  "  Une  Page  d'Amour,"  rebukes 
the  lie  which  brands  its  creator  as  infamous  and 
unclean  ;  but  even  over  this  divine  child  bends  the 
Nemesis  of  Sin,  cruel,  piteous,  and  hideous — the  same 
Nemesis  that  leant  over  the  disease-disfigured  coun- 
tenance of  Nana  the  courtesan,  and  over  the  figure  of 
the  old  woman,  paralysed  in  her  chair,  whose  son 
married  Therese  Raquin.  "  Erotic,"  quotha  !  Spirits 
of  mutual  admiration,  genial  souls  of  the  Savile  Club, 
is  this  your  indictment  ?  Come,  Messires  Dogberry 
and  Verges,  arrest  this  rogue  "  Deformed,"  and  haul 
him  up  for  judgment;  then,  when  Zola  is  sentenced 
to  his  fourteen  days,  go  and  seize  Pasteur  in  his 

x 


306  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

laboratory,  suppress  Huxley,  stifle  the  physiologist 
and  the  philosopher  as  offenders  against  public 
decency,  and  put  Herbert  Spencer  into  the  stocks ! 

Grim  moralist  and  stern  physiologist  as  he  is,  and 
as  such  supremely  justified,  Zola  is  nevertheless  all 
wrong.  To  say  that,  however,  is  neither  to  impute 
his  motive  nor  to  deny  his  genius.  Like  all  French- 
men, he  is  possessed  by  one  overmastering  ethical 
notion,  which  causes  him  to  sermonise  ad  nauseam. 
Even  the  French  Empire,  with  all  its  faults,  was 
something  more  than  a  subject  for  morbid  anatomy. 
A  man  may  die  of  syphilitic  caries,  yet  be  a  living 
soul.  In  reading  Zola,  sane  as  he  is,  one  has  to  hold 
one's  nose ;  whereas  life,  real  life,  smells  wholesome, 
and  it  is  a  very  phenomenal  city  whose  existence  can 
only  be  determined  by  its  lupanars  and  its  sewers. 
Large  as  is  the  part  which  sensualism  plays  in  life, 
and  which  it  must  play  as  long  as  the  beast's  brain 
subsists  within  the  man's,  it  is  merely  a  minor  part 
after  all.  To  Schopenhauer,  the  singing  of  the  little 
birds  was  only  one  among  many  signs  of  their  agony; 
to  Zola,  the  music  even  of  human  love  is  a  discord, 
Bending  in  despair.  Yet  only  a  pessimist  believes 
that  the  birds  are  utterly  miserable,  and  that  human 
creatures  are  completely  vile  or  unhappy.  So  that, 
when  all  is  said  and  done,  the  charge  against  Zola 
amounts  to  this — that  he  is  a  pessimist,  and  that 
pessimism  is  superficially  impertinent  and  funda- 
mentally wrong.  As  it  is. 

The  subject  of  Zola's  intellectual  weakness  is  too 
long  to  discuss  in  a  mere  note,  but  it  may  be  easily 
grasped  by  the  reader  who  will  refer  to  Zola's  own 
notes  on  Proudhon.  Proudhon  is  the  philosopher 
who  solves  great  social  and  literary  problems  by  the 
power  of  generalisation.  Zola  is  the  artist  who  can- 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  307 

not  generalise.  "  Une  oeuvre  d'art  est  un  coin  de 
la  creation  vu  a  travers  un  temperament/'  says  the 
artist  ;  attempting  a  minor  definition  which  in  no 
way  invalidates  the  philosopher's  larger  generalisation 
that  temperaments  and  works  of  art  are  the  products 
not  merely  of  individuals,  but  of  the  collective 
temperament  of  nations  and  of  humanity.  Naturally, 
Zola  misconceives  Proudhon  altogether.  Great  men, 
he  thinks,  are  men  who  permit  themselves  to  possess 
genius  without  "  consulting  humanity,"  who  say  what 
they  have  in  their  "  entrails  "  (sic),  and  not  what  lies 
in  the  entrails  of  their  "  imbecile  contemporaries/' 
But  perhaps  no  man  that  ever  lived  was  ever  so 
representative  of  his  contemporaries,  "  imbecile"  or 
otherwise,  as  Emile  Zola.  He  is  a  Frenchman  of  the 
Empire,  seeing  the  world  a  travers  the  temperaments 
of  all  his  fellow  Frenchmen — not  seeing  it  clearly, 
not  seeing  it  whole,  not  seeing  anything  in  it  but 
infinite  corruption  and  infinite  despair.  "  En  un  mot, 
je  suis  diametralement  oppose  a  Proudhon :  il  veut 
que  1'art  soit  le  produit  de  la  nation  ;  j'exige  qu'il  soit 
le  produit  de  Tindividu  !  "  But  that  Proudhon  is 
right,  Zola  himself  offers  the  strongest  literary 
demonstration. 

Despite  all  this,  Zola  is  an  earnest  man  and  a 
strong  writer,  and  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  say  even 
these  few  words  in  his  justification. 


X    2 


308  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

II. 

CHARLES   READE. 
A  SOUVENIR. 

IT  was  in  the  summer  of  1876  that  I  first  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Charles  Reade,  at  a  little  dinner 
given  by  Mr.  John  Coleman,  then  manager  of  the 
Queen's  Theatre.  The  occasion  was  one  especially 
interesting  to  me,  as  the  great  novelist  (for  great  and 
in  some  respects  unparalleled  he  will  be  found  to  be, 
when  the  time  for  his  due  appraisement  comes)  had 
expressed  a  desire  to  meet  my  sister-in-law,  who, 
though  still  a  very  young  girl  in  her  teens,  had  risen 
into  sudden  distinction  by  the  publication  of  the 
('  Queen  of  Connaught "  —  a  work  attributed  in 
several  quarters  to  Mr.  Reade  himself.  Pleasant 
beyond  measure  was  that  night's  meeting ;  pleasanter 
still  the  friendly  intimacy  which  followed  it,  and 
lasted  for  years  ;  for  of  all  the  many  distinguished 
men  that  I  have  met,  Charles  Reade,  when  you  knew 
him  thoroughly,  was  one  of  the  gentlest,  sincerest, 
and  most  sympathetic.  With  the  intellectual  strength 
and  bodily  height  of  an  Anak,  he  possessed  the 
quiddity  and  animal  spirits  of  Tom  Thumb.  He 
was  learned,  but  wore  his  wisdom  lightly,  as  became 
a  true  English  gentleman  of  the  old  school.  His 
manners  had  the  stateliness  of  the  last  generation, 
such  manners  as  I  had  known  in  the  scholar  Peacock, 
himself  a  prince  of  tale-tellers  ;  and,  to  women 
especially,  he  had  the  grace  and  gallantry  of  the 
good  old  band  of  literary  knights.  Yet  with  all  his 
courtly  dignity  he  was  as  frank-hearted  as  a  boy,  and 
utterly  without  pretence.  What  struck  me  at  once 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  309 

in  him  was  his  supreme  veracity.  Above  all  shams 
and  pretences,  he  talked  only  of  what  he  knew  ;  and 
his  knowledge,  though  limited  in  range,  was  large 
and  memorable.  At  the  period  of  our  first  acquain- 
tance he  was  living  at  Albert  Gate,  with  the  bright 
and  genial  Mrs.  Seymour  as  his  devoted  friend  and 
housekeeper ;  and  there,  surrounded  by  his  books 
of  wonderful  memoranda,  he  was  ever  happy  to  hold 
simple  wassail  with  the  few  friends  he  loved.  Gastro- 
nomically,  his  tastes  were  juvenile,  and  his  table  was 
generally  heaped  with  sweets  and  fruits.  A  magnifi- 
cent whist  and  chess  player,  he  would  condescend  to 
spend  whole  evenings  at  the  primitive  game  of 
"  squales."  In  these  and  all  other  respects,  he  was 
the  least  bookish,  the  least  literary  person  that  ever 
used  a  pen  ;  indeed,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  his 
love  for  merely  literary  people  was  small,  and  he  was 
consequently  above  all  literary  affectations.  His 
keen  insight  went  straight  into  a  man's  real  acquire- 
ments and  real  experience,  apart  from  verbal  or 
artistic  clothing,  and  he  was  ever  illustrating  in 
practice  the  potent  injunction  of  Goethe — 

Greift  nur  hinein  in's  voile  Menschenleben  ! 
Ein  jeder  lebt's,  nicht  vielen  ist's  bekannt, 
Und  wo  ihr's  packt,  da  ist's  interessant ! 

His  sympathy  was  for  the  living  world,  not  for  the 
world  of  mere  ideas  ;  and  as  his  sympathy  so  was  his 
religion — not  a  troubled,  problem-haunted,  querulous 
questioning  of  truths  unrealised  and  unrealisable,  but 
a  simple,  unpretending,  humble,  and  faithful  acqui- 
escence in  those  divine  laws  which  are  written  in  the 
pages  of  Nature  and  on  the  human  heart. 

He  read  few  books,  and  abominated  fine  writing. 
I  well  remember  his  impatience  when,  taking  up  a 
novel  of  Ouida,  and  being  pestered  with  a  certain 


3io  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

abominable  iteration  about  "  an  Ariadne,"  he  sent  the 
book  flying  across  the  room  before  he  had  reached 
the  end  of  the  first  chapter.  For  the  literature  of 
pure  imagination  he  cared  little  or  nothing,  perhaps 
not  quite  enough.  Among  the  letters  of  his  in  my 
possession  is  one  in  which,  referring  to  certain  con- 
versations we  had  had  on  the  subject  of  poetry,  he 
utters  the  following  dicta,  following  them  up  with  the 
charming  playfulness  which  was  his  most  pleasant 
characteristic  : 

"  Even  Tennyson,  to  my  mind,"  he  says,  "  is  only 
a  prince  of  poetasters  *  (!).  I  think  with  the  ancients, 
in  whose  view  the  Poetae  Majores  were  versifiers,  who 
could  tell  a  great  story  in  great  verse  and  adorn  it 
with  great  speeches  and  fine  descriptions ;  and  the 
Poetae  Minores  were  versifiers  who  could  do  all  the 
rest  just  as  well,  but  could  not  tell  a  great  story.  In 
short,  I  look  on  poetry  as  fiction  with  the  music  of 
words.  But,  divorced  from  fiction,  I  do  not  much 
value  the  verbal  faculty,  nor  the  verbal  music.  And 
I  believe  this  is  the  popular  instinct,  too,  and  that  a 
musical  story-teller  would  achieve  an  incredible  popu- 
larity. RtjUchisses-y  !  Would  have  gone  in  for  this 
myself  long  ago,  but  can  only  write  doggerel. 
Example  : 

"  You  and  Miss  Jay 

Hope  to  see  my  play  : 
I  hope  so  too. 

Because — the  day 

You  see  my  play, 

I  shall  see  you  I 
"  Vive  la  pot  sic  I 

"  Yours  ever  very  truly, 

"  READE." 

*  This  remark  must  be  taken  cum  grano  salis,  and  only  in 
reference  to  the  argument  which  follows.  Reade  was  a  warm 
admirer  of  the  poet  Laureate. — R.  B. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  3" 

Here  I  may  appropriately  refer  to  his  habit  of  signing 
only  with  his  surname  those  letters  which  he  reserved 
for  intimate  friends.  In  all  his  personal  relations  he 
was  completely  frank,  charming,  and  gay-hearted. 
On  the  back  of  a  photograph  before  me,  taken  at 
Margate,  whither  he  had  gone  for  the  benefit  of  his 
health,  he  wrote  as  follows  : 

"DEAR  Miss  JAY, 

"  I  enclose  the  benevolent  Imbecile  you  say  you  require. 
It  serves  you  right  for  not  coming  down  to  see  me  ! 

"  C.  R." 

"  All  previous  attempts  were  solidified  vinegar.     This  is  the 
reaction,  no  doubt !  " 

This  was  written  not  long  before  he  encountered 
the  great  trouble  of  his  later  life,  when  the  good  and 
gracious  friend  who  had  made  his  home  delightful  to 
all  who  knew  him  was  suddenly  and  cruelly  taken 
away.  "  Seymour/'  as  he  used  to  call  her  very  often, 
possessed  much  of  his  own  fine  frankness  of  character, 
and  knew  and  loved  him  to  the  last  with  beautiful 
friendship  and  devotion.  From  the  blow  of  her  loss 
he  never  quite  rallied.  His  grief  was  pitiful  to  see, 
in  so  strong  a  man  ;  but  from  that  moment  forward 
he  turned  his  thoughts  heavenward,  accepting  with 
noble  simplicity  and  humility  the  full  promise  of  the 
Christian  faith.  Fortunately,  I  think,  for  him,  his 
intellect  had  never  been  speculative  in  the  religious 
direction;  he  possessed  the  wisdom  which  to  so  many 
nowadays  is  foolishness,  and  was  able,  as  an  old  man, 
to  become  as  a  little  child. 

Any  personal  recollections  of  Charles  Reade 
would  be  incomplete  without  some  reference  to  his 
connection  with  the  stage.  From  first  to  last  he 
followed,  with  eager  pertinacity,  the  will-o'-the-wisp 
of  theatrical  fame,  descending  into  the  arena  to  fight 


312  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

with  wild  beasts — among  men  who,  neither  in  man- 
hood nor  in  genius,  had  any  right  to  be  called  his 
equals.  Only  in  his  latter  days  did  he  reap  much 
pecuniary  reward  from  the  theatre,  while  to  the 
very  last  he  received  scant  respect  from  the  ephemeral 
criticism  of  the  day.  But  his  love  for  the  stage 
amounted  to  a  passion,  and  more  than  once  have  I 
heard  him  say  that  he  would  rather  earn  five  hundred 
pounds  a  year  by  writing  plays  than  five  thousand 
by  writing  novels.  Unfortunately,  he  came  upon  a 
period  when  the  dramatic  art  is  without  honour,  and 
when  the  only  standard  of  its  success  is  commercial, 
and  in  his  eagerness  to  meet  halfway  an  uninstructed 
public,  he  had  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the  low  comedian 
and  the  master  carpenter.  But  if  any  reader  would 
perceive  how  good  work  in  this  kind  differs  from  bad, 
let  him  compare  the  literary  workmanship  of  a  play 
like  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend  or  The  Wandering 
Heir  with  any  printed  specimen  of  what  is  called  in 
America  the  tf  nailed-up  "  drama,  or  set  side  by  side 
with  that  by  Charles  Reade  any  other  translation 
or  adaptation  of  the  French  piece  known  as  The 
Courier  of  Lyons.  Even  in  his  worst  plays  Charles 
Reade  was  a  master  of  style. 

Far  away  from  and  above  his  achievements  in  the 
acting  drama  stand  the  works  by  which  my  dear  and 
lamented  friend  first  made  his  reputation.  The  time 
is  not  yet  ripe  for  a  fit  judgment  on  these  works  ;  but 
I  am  quite  certain  that  if  a  poll  of  living  novelists 
were  taken  it  would  be  found  that  a  large  majority 
of  them  recognise  Charles  Reade,  as  Walter  Besant 
some  time  ago  nobly  and  fearlessly  recognised  him> 
as  their  Master.  Yet  I  read  in  a  newspaper 
the  other  day  that  Trollope  considered  Reade 
"  almost  a  genius/'  and  I  am  informed  by  the 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  3*3 

Observer  that  "to  speak  of  the  author  of  'Never 
Too  Late  to  Mend  '  and  *  Hard  Cash '  as  a  man 
of  genius  would  be  an  exaggeration."  "  O  saeclum 
insipiens  et  inficetum ! "  Trollope,  whose  art  was 
the  art  of  Count  Smorltork//'^  the  bathos  of  vestry  - 
dom,  Trollope,  who  could  write  a  book  about  the 
West  Indies  without  putting  into  it  one  poetical 
thought  or  line,  passes  judgment  on  a  literary  giant 
and  pronounces  him  a  genius — "almost" !  The  Sunday 
newspaper,  which  would  doubtless  canonise  the 
author  of  "John  Inglesant,"  measures  this  Colossus, 
and  finds  him  of  "a  tall  man's  height — no  more"! 
Some  of  us,  on  the  other  hand,  who  are  not  to  be 
daunted  by  bogus  reputations,  or  to  be  awed  by  the 
idiocy  of  approven  literary  godhead,  hold  to  our  first 
faith  that  one  man  alone  in  our  generation  mastered 
the  great  craft  of  Homeric  story-telling,  and  that  this 
same  man  has  created  for  us  a  type  of  womanhood 
which  will  live  like  flesh  and  blood  when  the  heroines 
of  Thackeray,  Dickens,  and  George  Eliot  are  relegated 
to  the  old  curiosity  shop  of  sawdust  dolls.  For  my 
own  part,  I  would  rather  have  written  "  The  Cloister 
and  the  Hearth  "  than  half-a-dozen  "  Romolas,"  and 
I  would  rather  have  been  Charles  Reade,  great, 
neglected,  and  misunderstood  in  his  generation,  than 
the  pretentious  and  pedagogic  Talent  which  earned 
the  tinsel  crown  of  contemporary  homage,  to  be 
speedily  dethroned,  and,  in  the  good  time  that  is 
coming  for  Genius,  justly  forgotten. 


314  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

III. 
GEORGE   ELIOT'S   LIFE. 

THE  new  life  of  George  Eliot,  by  her  last  husband, 
Mr.  Cross,  has  been  justly  praised  by  some  English 
journals  as  a  model  of  book-making,  consisting,  as 
it  does,  almost  entirely  of  the  lady's  own  letters, 
slightly  and  somewhat  loosely  linked  together ;  but 
it  is,  none  the  less,  about  as  dreary  and  lugubrious  a 
work  as  men  have  met  with  during  the  last  decade. 
Without  any  bold  unveiling  of  the  Sibyl,  we  are 
made  to  feel,  not  for  the  first  time  of  late,  that  this 
biographical  habilitation  or  rehabilitation  of  dead 
men  and  women,  is,  at  best,  an  unfortunate  business; 
for,  though  George  Eliot  is  invoked  to  tell  her  own 
story,  and  tells  it  fairly  well,  it  all  amounts  to  nothing 
after  all.  We  get  few  hints  of  honest  human  thought, 
not  to  speak  of  flesh  and  blood  ;  we  find  that  the 
Sibyl  is  still  posing,  and  will  not  let  us  catch  one 
glimpse  of  her  real  face.  This  statement  may  seem 
extraordinary  to  readers  who  are  content  to  accept  as 
self-revelation  a  good  deal  of  feminine  gossip,  much 
talk  about  receipts  and  sales,  some  remarks  on  gang- 
lionic  cells,  and  a  few  quasi-editorial  opinions  on  the 
advantages  of  beneficence.  But  Posterity,  if  it 
should  interest  itself  very  much  on  the  subject — 
which  I  take  leave  to  doubt — will  want  something 
more  ;  something  such  as  comes  to  us,  with  almost 
Biblical  solemnity,  in  the  terribly  pathetic  story  of 
poor  Carlyle. 

When  I  met  George  Eliot  first,  over  twenty  years 
ago,  she  was  living,  with  her  husband,  George  Henry 
Lewes,  at  the  Priory,  St.  John's  Wood,  London,  and 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  315 

was  then  a  tall,  slight,  not  ungraceful  woman,  in  the 
prime  of  life.  As  every  one  knows,  she  had  a 
great  reputation,  which  she  had  already  begun  to 
discount,  however,  by  the  production  of  "  poetry." 
Every  art  and  device  of  the  experienced  litterateur 
had  been  used  by  Lewes,  a  thorough  man  of  the 
world,  to  make  that  reputation  mysterious  and  sibyl- 
line; so  that  an  unanimous  press  and  a  confiding 
public  were  leagued  together  in  the  faith  that  George 
Eliot  spoke  with  authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes. 
Seldom  do  works  of  art  satisfy  both  the  instructed 
and  the  uninstructed  classes  ;  yet  "  Adam  Bede  "  and 
"  Silas  Marner  "  did  so,  and  the  author  received  the 
daily  assurance  of  completed  fame.  A  few,  like  my- 
self, failed  to  recognise,  in  some  of  the  author's  works, 
the  puissant  touch  which  conveys  literary  immortality, 
while  discovering  in  them,  amidst  so  much  that  was 
admirable  and  exquisitely  expressed,  a  distressing 
taint  of  intellectual  conventionality,  foreign  to  the 
nature  of  truly  creative  genius.  What  I  saw  of 
George  Eliot  personally  confirmed  me  in  my  im- 
pression that  the  sibylline  business,  both  publicly 
and  privately,  had  been  overdone.  Naturally  pas- 
sionate, aggressive,  sceptical  yet  impulsive,  she  had 
sat  so  long  upon  the  tripod  that  her  genius  had 
become  frozen  at  the  fountain,  and  her  character  was 
veneered  over  with  the  self-pride  of  insight  ;  so  that, 
with  all  her  apprehensiveness,  she  lacked  sympathy, 
and  with  all  her  moral  enthusiasm,  she  was  spiritually 
cold.  The  life  she  led  was  not  one  favourable  to  free- 
dom of  character.  She  saw  few  people,  and  those  few 
were  Sibyl-worshippers ;  her  sex  debarred  her  from 
the  knowledge  of  at  least  two-thirds  of  humanity ; 
her  literary  prosperity  was  untroubled  by  miscon- 
ceptions or  harsh  criticisms ;  so  it  is  little  wonder 


316  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

that  life  at  last  became  for  her  an  ingenious  physio- 
logical puzzle,  to  be  pieced  together  with  the  assist- 
ance of  M.  Comte  and  Mr.  Harrison.  The  result, 
I  believe,  is  recorded  in  literary  productions  which, 
with  all  their  brilliancy  and  subtlety,  with  all  their 
friendliness  of  outlook,  with  all  their  well-weighed 
catholicity,  became  at  last,  in  the  worst  sense, 
mechanical,  and  exchanged  for  lineaments  of  flesh 
and  blood  the  deathly  stare  and  ghastly  ineffectiveness 
of  a  "  waxwork  "  *  exhibition. 

A  characteristic  passage  in  these  letters  is  the 
one  where  George  Eliot  describes  her  interest  in 
Wallace's  "  Malayan  Archipelago,"  and  her  particular 
delight  in  the  record  of  the  birth  and  babyhood  of 
the  young  orang-outang.  Here  her  sympathy  with 
popular  science  warmly  asserted  itself,  and,  indeed, 
she  was  always  most  thoroughly  at  home  in  welcom- 
ing any  suggestion  which  threw  discredit  on  the 
superhuman  pretensions  of  human  nature.  Very 
early  in  her  career  she  had  laid  the  spectre  of  "  An- 
thropomorphism," and  discovered  that  Comte's 
Grand  fLtre  was  a  more  reasonable  person  than  the 
Pater  Noster  of  popular  superstition.  Forthwith  it 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  her  that  human  types,  pos- 
sessing all  the  peculiarities  of  living  beings,  might 
be  created  for  the  world  by  a  sort  of  intellectual  evo- 
lution. But  alas !  the  world  has  discovered  by  this 
time  that  these  types,  so  scientifically  fashioned,  were 
homunculi  and  simulacra,  not  human  creatures.  No 
such  process  could  have  given  us  Tom  and  Maggie 
Tulliver,  or  Mrs.  Poyser,  or  even  Hetty  Sorrel  ;  but 
it  gave  us  Romola  and  Daniel  Deronda,  and  Dorothea 
Brooke,  and  the  skittish  marionette,  Fedalma.  It  is 

*  This  epithet  of  "  waxwork  "  was  very  happily  applied  by 
Mr.  Swinburne  to  "  Daniel  Deronda." 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSA.\f.  317 

a  pity,  therefore,  that  George  Eliot  ever  learned  the 
vocabulary  of  science,  or  heard  anything,  even  at 
second  hand,  about  ganglionic  cells.  The  radical 
defect  of  her  mind,  or  rather  of  her  education,  is  to 
be  seen  in  her  poetry.  Striking  novels  may  be 
constructed,  as  we  have  seen,  with  much  cleverness 
and  little  inspiration ;  but  great  poems  are  all 
inspiration,  from  the  first  flush  of  thought  to  the 
last  consecrating  touch  of  form.  Not  even  a  con- 
temporary critic  would  be  rash  enough  to  affirm  that 
George  Eliot's  poems  are  much  superior  to  poetic 
exercises.  In  only  one  of  them,  the  series  of  sonnets 
called  "Brother  and  Sister/'  is  there  either  the 
rhyming  instinct  or  the  pathetic  fallacy.  In  all  she 
wrote,  the  editorial  leaven  is  predominant.  One 
instance  out  of  many,  serves  to  illustrate  her  radical 
want  of  imagination.  Take,  then,  the  opening  lines 
of  the  "  Legend  of  Jubal "  : 

When  Cain  was  driven  from  Jehovah's  land 
He  wandered  eastward,  seeking  some  far  strand 
Ruled  by  kind  gods  who  asked  no  offerings 
Save  pure  field-fruits,  as  aromatic  things, 
To  feed  the  subtler  sense  of  frames  divine 
That  lived  on  fragrance  for  their  food  or  wine  : 
Wild,  joyous  gods,  who  winked  at  faults  and  folly, 
And  could  be  pitiful  and  melancholy. 
He  never  had  a  doubt  that  such  gods  were. 
He  looked  within  and  saw  them  mirrored  there. 
Some  think  he  came  at  last  to  Tartary, 
And  some  to  Ind,  etc. 

Passing  over  the  clumsiness  of  touch  in  the  fourth 
line,  there  is  not  much  fault  to  be  found  with  the 
verses  until  we  reach  the  fifth  couplet,  when  the 
whole  imagery  of  the  poem  falls  asunder  to  show  the 
writer's  commonplace  intellectuality.  A  poet,  having 
just  called  up  the  vision  of  "  wild,  joyous  gods," 
could  never  have  paused  to  explain  that  Jubal  had 


318  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

no  doubt  of  their  existence,  because  he  saw  them 
mirrored  in  his  inner  consciousness.  Such  a  sugges- 
tion, at  such  a  moment,  is  of  the  inmost  nature  of 
unbelief,  of  the  very  essence  of  prose.  And  what  we 
discover  here  we  discover  everywhere  in  the  Sibyl's 
later  writings ;  keen  intelligence  and  culture  are 
predominant,  and  literary  faith  is  wanting.  Quite 
different  is  the  impression  gained  on  a  fresh  perusal 
of  "Adam  Bede,"  or  the  first  volume  of  "  Mill  on  the 
Floss,"  or,  best  of  all,  the  "  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life." 
Here  the  emotion  is  almost  poetical,  and  the  insight 
quite  delightful.  The  beautiful  note,  first  struck  in 
"Amos  Barton,"  died  away  into  a  discord  with  the 
beginning  of  "  Romola."  A  narrow  but  exquisite 
experience  had  been  exhausted,  and  the  period  of 
manufacture  had  begun.  George  Eliot's  books  were 
full  to  the  last  of  wise  and  clever  things,  her  style  to 
the  end  was  that  of  honest  workmanship,  as  of  one 
who  reverenced  her  art ;  but  the  Heaven  that  lay 
around  her  literary  infancy  seemed  further  and 
further  off  as  her  knowledge  widened.  Her  writings 
reflected,  not  the  lover  of  humanity,  but  the 
superior  person.  Pure  literature  is  a  democracy, 
however,  where  no  superior  persons  are  tolerated. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  most  noteworthy  woman  of  this 
generation,  a  woman  of  unexampled  cleverness  and 
veracity,,  has  left  works  which,  I  believe,  will  be 
speedily  forgotten,  while  "  Jane  Eyre,"  and  "  Casa 
Guidi  Windows,"  and  the  "  Cry  of  the  Children,"  will 
be  remembered. 

Indeed,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  George  Eliot 
was,  not  literally  and  technically,  but  essentially,  a 
Positivist ;  and  Positivism  is  not  a  creed  out  of  which 
great  imaginative  literature  is  .ever  likely  to  spring. 
Such  a  Pantheon  as  Comte  suggested,  consisting  of 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  319 

the  wise  men  of  the  world,  and  presiding  over  a 
cosmos  where  the  rapture  of  inspiration  is  exchanged 
for  the  miseries  of  evolution,  is  a  poor  exchange  for 
the  interregnum  of  the  old  gods  of  fable.  It  may 
produce  half-hearted  singers,  but  no  poets;  prodigious 
talents,  but  no  geniuses  of  what  Goethe  called 
"  daimonic  "  power.  I  am  far  from  deprecating  the 
influence  of  Science  on  works  of  art;  indeed,  I  believe 
that  out  of  the  union  of  Science  and  Religion  will 
issue,  sooner  or  later,  the  supremest  literature  this 
world  has  ever  known.  But  George  Eliot  was  too 
much  occupied  with  crude  contemporary  discoveries 
to  grasp  the  full  issues  of  human  life  and  death.  She 
studied,  not  on  an  observatory,  but  in  a  laboratory  ; 
from  conception  and  creation  she  turned  to  dissection 
and  vivisection.  Her  influence  was  enormous  for  the 
time  being,  precisely  because  she  appealed  to  an 
enormous  public  exercised  in  the  same  way,  just 
waking  up  to  the  awful  discovery  that  the  moon  was, 
not  Diana,  but  green  cheese,  or  magnesium.  Of 
course  we  have  no  concern  with  a  writer's  creed,  save 
in  so  far  as  it  determines  the  quality  of  workmanship. 
In  George  Eliot's  case,  it  changed  what  had  originally 
been  natural,  fresh,  and  charming,  into  something 
tiresome,  platitudinarian,  rectangular.  She  began  as 
an  enthusiast,  and  ended  as  a  bigot.  The  full  extent 
of  this  change  may  be  ascertained  by  contrasting  her 
early  letters,  written  before  success  came  to  her,  with  the 
later  epistles,  written  when  she  was  firmly  fixed  upon  the 
Sibyl's  tripod.  Even  when  she  was  taster  in  ordinary 
to  the  propagandist  publisher,  Mr.  John  Chapman, 
she  had  not  begun  to  take  the  literature  of  revolt  too 
seriously ;  indeed,  she  knew  well  that  it  meant  "  high 
jinks"  generally,  and  had  doubtful  credentials  ;  but 
when  it  changed  its  machinery,  and  became  the 


320  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

literature  of  a  scientific  priesthood,  she  was  mastered 
by  its  novel  pretensions,  and  went  right  over  to  it,  as 
a  ripe  convert  and  eager  auxiliary.     From  that  time 
forth,  her  genius  degenerated.     As  I  have  said,  the 
life  she  led  with  George  Lewes  was  not  favourable  to 
breadth   of  sympathy,  or   knowledge   of  the   living 
world.     They   were  a   retired    couple,    generally   in 
low   health ;   and  their  visitors  consisted  chiefly  of 
men  of  the  new  school — e.g..  Bastian,  Harrison,  etc. 
George  Eliot's  female  acquaintances  might  have  been 
counted  upon  the  ringers  of  one  hand.     I  have  been 
at  a  gathering  in  the  Priory  where  there  were  twenty 
or  thirty  gentlemen,  and  only  one  lady,  the  hostess 
herself.     Now,  George  Eliot  stood  much  in  need  of 
feminine  companionship  ;  she  had  a  woman's  heart 
under  all  her  learning,  and  was  capable  of  interesting 
herself  even  in  feminine  frivolities  ;  and  so  there  was 
something   pathetic   in    her   loneliness.     Women,    of 
course,  tried  to  thrust  themselves  upon  her,  persons 
of  the  strong-minded  sort,  I  imagine;  but  she  rejected 
all  such  impertinent  overtures.  On  one  occasion,  when 
she  had  been  pestered  by  the  solicitations  of  some 
more  than  usually  pertinacious  stranger,  I  heard  her 
exclaim  against  the  folly  of  troubling  one's  self  to 
meet  "  persons  with  whom  one  has  no  sympathy  in 
common."     "  Don't  you  agree  with  me?"  she  asked, 
looking  at  me  with  her  grave,  thoughtful  eyes.     I 
answered  her  in  the  negative,  giving  it  as  my  humble 
impression  that  all  human  beings,  however  morally 
and  intellectually  different,  had  something  in  common 
with  each  other,  and  that,  in  any  case,  it  was  specially 
beneficial  for  literary  people  to  encounter  persons  with 
no  interest  in  literature,  from  whom  they  might  at 
least  discover  how  small  a  part  mere  literature  played, 
after  all,  on  this  wonderful  and  many-featured  planet. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  321 

Few  works  of  permanent  literary  value  obtain 
recognition  from  the  criticism  that  is  contemporary, 
and  if  George  Eliot  had  been  different,  she  would 
never  have  achieved  her  great  popularity.  Luckily, 
in  all  matters  of  knowledge,  sympathy,  and  religion, 
she  was  well  abreast  of  her  time.  She  was  content 
with  the  scientific  solution  of  the  problem  of  exist- 
ence, and  one  of  the  best  bits  of  verse  she  ever 
wrote  was  her  prayer  to  join  the  "choir  invisible," 
who,  in  the  Comtean  conception,  make  music  to  the 
great  march  of  Humanity.  Her  first  writings  gave 
promise  of  a  great  writer,  but,  viewed  coldly  and 
dispassionately  nowy  they  do  not  justify  the  claim  of 
her  admirers  that  even  her  best  work  will  be  a 
permanent  possession.  Yet  she  was  a  great  woman, 
though  a  genius  manqiu',  a  striking  and  commanding 
contemporary  figure,  if  not  a  spirit  whose  labours 
may  defy  oblivion.  She  will  be  long  remembered 
and  always  deeply  respected  ;  but  her  fatal  mistake 
was  that  of  writing  as  if  the  last  words  of  wisdom  had 
been  spoken.  Modern  science  is  neither  a  hideous 
farce,  as  some  theologians  imagine,  nor  a  thing  to  be 
taken,  as  George  Eliot  took  it,  too  seriously.  It  is 
merely  an  interesting  chapter  in  the  complex 
philosophy  of  Human  Life. 


322  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

IV. 
EPICTETUS* 

THE  translation  of  Epictetus,  executed  by  a  gentle- 
man who  commanded  a  troop  of  black  soldiers  during 
the  great  American  campaign,  is  doubtless  popular  in 
America,  where  the  fiery  breath  of  war  and  the  wild 
winds  of  political  change  have  rapidly  dissipated  the 
mists  and  fogs  of  transcendentalism,  and  converted  a 
nation  of  speculators  into  a  nation  of  men.  The 
doctrine  of  fortitude,  first  growled  by  Zeno  and  his 
disciples  at  the  pigs  in  the  sty  of  Epicurus,  and 
later  still  shaken  like  a  lion's  mane  in  the  faces  of  pale 
emperors  with  unlimited  control  over  human  life — a 
creed  somewhat  narrow  and  practical,  allied  to  the 
kind  of  speculation  which  forms  bulwarks  against 
contradiction  and  christens  them  moral  principles, 
and  expressed  in  a  dialectic  terminology  as  sharp 
as  the  whizzing  of  a  cannon-ball — a  rule  of  conduct 
which  makes  a  fetish  of  individual  "prosperity" 
(cvpoia)  and  sticks  it  full  of  pins — will  answer  the 
requirements  of  the  typical  Yankee,  and  even  satisfy 
some  of  the  cravings  of  the  Concord  school  of  philo- 
sophers. The  negro,  too,  inhaling  his  new  liberty, 
may  glance  with  pleasure  over  pages  which  prove 
that  there  was  nothing  in  a  state  of  slavery  incon- 
sistent with  high  philosophic  culture ;  and  that  all 
one  has  to  do  in  order  to  secure  the  cvpoia  (or  "  pump- 
kin," according  to  Carlyle)  is  to  fold  the  hands  on  the 
bosom,  look  calm,  and  smile  at  the  Infinite.  For  the 

*  "The  Works  of  Epictetus."  A  Translation  from  the 
Greek,  based  on  that  of  Elizabeth  Carter.  By  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson.  Boston  :  Little,  Brown,  &  Co. 


AND  JETSAM.  323 

rest,  the  "Discourses"  of  Kpictetus  are  plc.is.int  and 
easy  reading  for  those  who  like  the  dialectic  method, 
and    they   contain    a   good    deal    that    is    wise   and 
eternal.     I  do  not  go  the  extreme  length,  with  Mr. 
Higginson,  of  asserting  that  I  am  acquainted  with 
no   book  so    replete    with    high   conceptions    of  the 
Deity  and  noble  aims  for  man,  or  in  which  the  laws 
of  retribution   are   more   grandly  stated,    with    less 
of  merely  childish  bribery  or  threatening.     So  far  as 
I  can  perceive,  Epictetus's  devotion  to  the  noblest 
aim  of  man,  that  of  religious  inquiry,  is  in  the  inverse 
ratio  to  his  assumption  of  the  possibility  of  personal 
virtue.     And   what   on    earth    does    Mr.    Higginson 
mean    by  the    "  laws   of   retribution "  ?     And    what 
philosophic  connection  have  such  laws  with  "  bribery  " 
or  "threatening"?     It  would  have  been  better  to  let 
Epictetus  speak  for  himself  than    saddle  him   with 
such  sort  of  praise — especially  as  he  is  made,  in  this 
version,  to  speak  very  well  indeed.     The  version,  it  is 
true,  is  not  altogether  faultless,  and  is  perhaps,  on 
the  whole,  inferior  to  that  of  Miss  Carter  in  fidelity 
and  force.     The  rendering  of  "  office "    for   dpxal   is 
better  than  Miss  Carter's  "command,"  and  there  are 
many  similar  instances  of  -minute  care  ;  but  "  what  is 
right  and  what  is  wrong,"  for  rl  poi  e£e<m  Kal  ri  /ioi  ov* 
e&a-Tiv,  though  correct  in  the  strict  signification  of  the 
English  words  as  explained  by  Home  Tooke,  does 
not  convey  to  ordinary  readers  the  sense  of  "  what  is 
and  what  is  not  permitted  to  me/'     Again,  "  pheno- 
mena"  is   improperly   given    as   the   equivalent   for 
^avraa-im,  which  looks  all  the  more  unpardonable  when 

we    find    cm  fyavravia  ei,  KOI  ov  Trdvrvs  TO  <f)aiv6fifvovf  Correctly 

translated  into,  "  you  are  but  a  semblance,  and  by  no 
means  the  real  thing."  Yet,  to  do  Mr.  Higginson 
justice,  in  more  than  one  instance,  where  he  is  not 

Y    2 


324  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 


quite  so  literal,   he  is  somewhat  wiser. 

2oKpar?7,   KCU   'tSe  auroi'  trvy  Karaite  ijj,evov  'AAKt/3iaS/7,   /cat 

avroO  T^  topaz/.  Here  Miss  Carter  had  the  boldness  to 
translate  literally,  while  Mr.  Higginson  converts 
the  horrible  'AXiwjStafy  into  the  harmless  "  his  beloved," 
and  thus  saves  his  readers  from  the  merest  shiver  of 
a  repugnance  which  is  felt  too  frequently  in  reading 
the  heathen  philosophers. 

And  Epictetus,  in  spite  of  all  Mr.  Higginson  may 
say  to  the  contrary,  was  as  very  a  heathen  as  ever 
set  up  school  in  Rome  —  a  fine,  rough,  self-sufficient 
type  of  heathen,  practical  and  vaguely  sceptical,  even 
in  those  creeping  moments  when  the  breath  felt  stale, 
and  the  clouds  of  fantasy  fashioned  themselves  into 
uncouth  forms  of  Deity.  It  is  in  no  religious  mood 
that  he  exclaims,  in  a  sentence  which,  perhaps,  is  the 
keystone  of  his  whole  philosophy,  "Two  rules  we 
should  have  always  ready  —  that  there  is  nothing 
good  or  evil  save  in  the  Will  [e£o>  rfs  irpocupco-e&s]  ;  and 
that  we  are  not  to  lead  events,  but  to  follow  them." 
He  appears  indeed  to  have  held,  with  the  earlier 
Stoics,  that  there  is  one  unoriginated,  unchangeable, 
and  supreme  God,  but  only  such  a  God  as  bore  the 
same  relation  to  the  world  as  the  human  soul  is  sup- 
posed to  bear  to  the  body,  and  whose  power  was 
limited  to  the  laws  of  materials  out  of  which  things 
were  originally  fashioned.  He  utterly  repudiated  the 
doctrine  of  Chance,  and  described  events  as  just 
sufficiently  controlled  by  Law,  or  Fate,  to  allow  of 
the  freedom  of  human  action.  The  souls  of  men  he 
averred,  paradoxically,  to  be  parts  of  the  essence  of 
Deity,  or  the  soul  of  the  world  —  effusions,  in  a  word, 
as  Spinoza  held  them  to  be,  but  perishable  with  the 
body.  The  reward  of  goodness  is  goodness,  of  evil, 
evil  ;  the  bribe  of  heaven,  or  the  threat  of  hell,  as 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  325 

Mr.  Higginson  would  express  it,  is  outside  the  circle 
of  his  philosophy  ;  there  is  no  Hades,  no  Acheron,  no 
Pyriphlegethon.  The  business  of  life  concluded,  man 
is  resolved  into  the  four  elements  from  which  he 
emanated  incarnate,  and  has  no  further  personal 
existence.  The  prospects  of  felicity  do  not  extend 
beyond  dissolution,  but  man  may  be  glorious  and 
happy  as  a  god  in  this  world,  enjoying  perfect  tran- 
quillity of  mind  in  many  ways — stretched  on  the 
rack,  beaten  with  the  lash,  or  cut  piecemeal  to  glut 
the  pale,  bloodthirsty  hunger  of  an  emperor.  The 
philosopher,  "when  beaten,  must  love  those  who 
beat  him  " — a  capital  maxim,  which  Legree  might 
have  inscribed  on  the  flogging -post  for  the  edification 
of  Uncle  Tom.  While  holding  life  endurable  under 
any  circumstances,  the  philosopher  was,  nevertheless, 
not  severe  on  suicide.  True,  Mr.  Higginson  states 
that  there  is  one  special  argument  against  suicide, 
but  that  argument  does  not  state  that  self-slaughter 
is  wrong,  but  that  it  is  extremely  contradictory  and 
unphilosophic  in  a  man  who  counts  the  body  as 
nothing.  Suffering,  the  Stoic  said,  is  no  real  evil, 
forgetting  how  Zeno,  the  father  of  the  sect,  hanged 
himself  when  his  finger  ached. 

Much  of  all  this  becomes  intelligible  when  we 
reflect  that  Epictetus  speaks  invariably  in  a  fictitious 
character,  that  of  the  ideal  man,  perfectly  wise  and 
good.  The  "  Discourses "  are  elaborate  protests 
against  human  error,  and  confidential  assertions  of 
what  ought  to  be.  In  more  than  one  place  the  philo- 
sopher candidly  confesses  his  own  imperfections. 
"  Believe  me,"  he  exclaims  humbly,  "  I  have  not 
quite  yet  the  powers  of  a  good  man,"  adding  that 
such  powers  are  of  sure  growth,  but  slow.  Read  in 
this  way,  and  by  the  light  of  history,  the  fantastic 


326  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

fortitude  prescribed  in  the  "  Discourses  "  seems  noble 
and  dignified  in  the  extreme. 

Had  Epictetus  invariably  held  forth  in  his  simpler 
fashion,  without  attempting  to  launch  out  into  the 
more  airy  region  of  abstract  metaphysics,  he  would 
be  more  valuable  as  a  teacher.  Regarded  as  the 
description  of  a  practical  ideal,  many  of  his  sayings 
are,  as  we  have  suggested,  true  and  eternal — admirable 
standards  of  perfection  in  human  conduct.  He  seldom 
or  never  talks  enthusiastically  ;  there  is  little  or  no 
fire  in  his  composition.  He  has  no  high  theological 
insight,  no  white-heat  thirst  for  spiritual  food.  The 
nearest  approach  we  find  in  the  remains  preserved 
by  Arrian  to  real  grandeur  of  religious  expression  is 

perhaps   the  following,  ^vve^trrepov  voei  TOV  Oeov,  rj  dvcnrvfL  ; 

but  this  is  in  all  probability  a  spurious  fragment.  It 
is  not  in  such  a  mood  that  he  conceived  his  golden 
ideas  of  human  conduct.  His  true  mood  was  a  house- 
hold mood;  he  was  ill  at  ease  with  a  great  concep- 
tion, but  at  home  with  a  sick  mourner  in  an  empty 
house.  Cant,  humbug,  and  pretence  of  all  sorts  were 
odious  to  him.  He  had  a  plain  man's  hate  for  tinsel. 
Had  he  been  placed  under  more  modern  lights,  he 
might  have  become  a  Calvinist ;  for  he  had  a  low, 
very  low,  idea  of  his  fellows,  and  clear  knowledge 
how  far  the  average  man  stood  below  his  ideal  man  ; 
but  he  would  never  have  swung  a  censer.  He  had 
much  of  the  preacher  in  him,  little  of  the  philosopher^ 
and  was  quite  hard  enough  in  many  of  his  moods  to 
accept  a  doctrine  of  downright  damnation.  It  was  clear 
to  him  that  God,  or  Zeus,  or  the  Spirit  of  the  World, 
presided  'over  a  great  deal  of  evil — that  the  pure  of 
heart  were  few,  and  that  the  tyranny  of  circumstances 
was  very  terrible — and  that  the  only  compromise 
possible  with  Zeus  was  to  set  up  invulnerable  laws  of 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  327 

private  fortitude.  On  the  whole,  he  conceived  the 
world  was  not  worth  living  in,  but  stubborn  will 
might  make  it  endurable — to  a  philosopher.  Socrates 
was  his  great  historical  model,  though  he  declined  to 
agree  with  Socrates  on  many  subjects,  notably  the 
subject  of  a  future  state.  He  was  the  toughest  bit  of 
slave-flesh  that  ever  power  had  to  deal  with.  Strength 
and  force  could  not  bind  him,  though  they  bound 
Prometheus;  for  Epictetus  was  a  commonplace 
philosopher,  no  fire-filcher.  What  others  did  in 
theory  he  did  in  practice.  We  read  of  no  other  such 
Stoic  in  real  life.  Though  many  of  the  anecdotes 
preserved  concerning  him  are  doubtless  spurious, 
there  is  enough  in  the  bare  skeleton  of  his  life  to 
show  that  he  was  made  of  iron  stuff,  and  enough 
in  the  records  of  his  disciples  to  convince  us  that  his 
influence  upon  those  with  whom  he  came  into  contact 
was  very  extraordinary. 

If  we  picture  a  deformed  negro  dwelling  some- 
where in  South  America  while  slavery  still  existed, 
abused,  contemned,  beaten,  yet  managing  in  despite 
of  circumstances  to  persuade  cultivated  free  people  to 
hearken  humbly  to  his  discourses  on  fate,  free-will, 
and  private  virtue,  we  form  some  idea  of  the  position 
of  Epictetus.  We  first  hear  of  him  as  the  slave  of 
Epaphroditus,  Nero's  freed-man  and  Master  of  Re- 
quests— the  same  who  assisted  Nero  to  kill  himself, 
and  was  slaughtered  by  Domitian  for  having  done 
so.  If  report  be  true,  the  courtier  was  by  no  means 
a  gentle  master.  We  have  it  on  the  authority  of 
Origen  that  when  Epaphroditus  put  his  leg  to  the 
torture,  Epictetus,  already  a  Stoic,  smiled,  saying, 
"  You  will  certainly  break  my  leg,"  which  accordingly 
happened,  on  which  the  slave  continued,  still  smiling, 
"  Didn't  I  tell  you,  you  would  break  it  ?  "  However, 


328  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

Simplicius  in  his  commentary  expressly  states  that 
the  lameness  of  Epictetus  was  owing  to  rheumatism. 
How  or  when  he  became  free  is  unknown,  but  it  is 
evident  that  by  the  time  when  the  philosophers  were 
hounded  from  Rome  by  Domitian,  he  had  already 
gained  considerable  influence  as  a  thinker.  On  the 
issue  of  the  decree  which  turned  thin-clad  wisdom 
adrift,  Epictetus  retired  to  Nicopolis,  and  there 
founded  a  school,  carrying  with  him  in  all  proba- 
bility his  whole  property  and  stock-in-trade,  a  bed, 
a  pipkin,  and  an  earthen  lamp.  Poor  almost  to  star- 
vation-point, a  cripple,  uncouth  and  sharp  of  speech, 
he  assured  the  numerous  persons  of  distinction  who 
flocked  to  hear  him  talk  that  he  was  perfectly  happy  ; 
expounded  and  illustrated,  in  fact,  his  whole  principle 
of  human  fortitude ;  and  taught  that  Arrian,  soldier 
and  senator,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  "  Discourses  "  and  the  "  Manual."  Prac- 
tical and  dogmatic,  he,  nevertheless,  made  his  school 
a  fashionable  lounging-place  for  the  questioning 
spirits  of  the  unequally  balanced  Empire.  He  did 
all  his  teaching  by  word  of  mouth  ;  he  was  no  com- 
poser ;  but  briskly  wielding  the  club  of  dialectics, 
he  hammered  hard  truths  into  many  an  unwilling 
conscience.  Instead  of  flattering,  he  anatomised  his 
hearers — mocked  at  those  who  came  for  mere  idle 
pleasure — picked  out  their  weaknesses  with  a  grim 
humour  which  is  sometimes  lost  in  the  diffuse  and 
repetitive  records  of  Arrian — and  earned,  by  the 
sheer  force  of  his  practical  example,  unlimited  influ- 
ence as  a  portico  philosopher.  Now,  for  the  first 
time,  men  beheld  a  true  Stoic — one  whose  fortitude 
no  Caesar  could  bend,  and  who  held  unflinchingly  by 
the  strength  of  an  invincible  will.  He  taught  much 
by  illustration  and  anecdote,  but  his  daily  life  was 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  329 

the  best  illustration  and  anecdote  of  all.  He  was,  if 
we  may  use  the  word,  a  reformer.  In  the  very  centre 
of  an  unhealthy  social  life,  he  stood  like  adamant, 
erect,  smiling,  stainless,  and  indeed,  if  we  mark 
closely  one  or  two  passages  in  his  writings,  not 
altogether  ungentle.  Perhaps,  indeed,  he  used  the 
terminology  of  the  Stoic  school  as  that  best  suited 
for  purposes  of  practical  reform,  and  would  not  have 
gone  so  far  in  following  the  merely  abstract  principles 
of  that  school,  had  he  not  feared  to  appear  contra- 
dictory. What  men  just  then  wanted,  for  purposes 
of  reform,  was  not  a  philosophic  treatise,  but  a  life ; 
and  Epictetus,  with  that  view,  gave  up  his  life  to 
them.  Under  the  strong  light  of  our  whiter  civilisa- 
tion, such  a  figure  as  his  may  appear  rough  and 
rude;  but  picture  the  society  of  the  Empire,  think  of 
the  thousand  enormities  practised  in  the  name  of 
philosophy,  contrast  the  life  of  Epictetus  with  the 
vagaries  and  inconsistencies  of  men  like  Seneca,  and 
that  human  figure,  uttering  its  doctrine  of  fixed  prin- 
ciples and  a  particular  Providence  connected  with 
the  freedom  of  the  will,  seems  noble  and  dignified 
beyond  all  the  fantasies  of  metaphysicians  and  all 
the  hair-splitting  homunculi  of  the  schools. 

To  the  value  of  the  records  of  Arrian  many  fine 
thinkers  have  borne  testimony.  Marcus  Antoninus 
ranks  Epictetus  with  Socrates,  Aulus  Gellius  calls 
him  the  greatest  of  the  Stoics,  Origen  avers  that  his 
writings  have  done  more  good  than  Plato's ;  and 
in  more  recent  times,  the  very  different  tempers 
of  Pascal  and  Bishop  Butler  have  found  equal  delight 
in  him.  For  my  own  part,  while  disagreeing  with 
many  of  his  ideas,  I.  admit  that  his  position  as 
a  reformer  rendered  them  necessary,  and  I  believe 
that  the  study  of  his  precepts  will  be  beneficial 


330  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

even  now.  Few  philosophers  are  easier  reading. 
The  rough  egoism,  the  absolute  want  of  sympathy 
with  the  movements  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  the  im- 
practicable elevation  of  individual  will,  is  at  all  events 
quite  as  wholesome  as  Carlyle's  extravagancies  of 
hero-worship  and  Goethe's  science  of  culture.  It  is 
not  by  minds  like  that  of  Epictetus  that  the  world 
progresses,  but  it  is  by  such  minds  that  it  is  purified 
at  stationary  periods  ;  and  just  now  England  is  in  a 
stationary  state,  and  America  is  pausing  after  action, 
and  ready  to  digest  new  ideas  or  old  ones  that  are 
eternal.  Much  good  may  the  ghost  of  the  old  Stoic 
do  us  all ! 


V. 

THE     GOSPEL    ACCORDING    TO     THE 
PRINTER'S    DEVIL. 

THE  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  in  an  article  called  "  The 
Knife  in  Journalism/'  quoted  recently  from  a  book 
called  "  Oceana "  some  uncomplimentary  passages 
concerning  Mr.  Frederick  Harrison  and  Mr.  Robert 
Buchanan ;  for  though  Mr.  J.  A.  Froude,  the  author 
of  the  book,  puts  dashes  in  place  of  proper  names, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the 
individuals  so  attacked.  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette 
supplies  the  blanks,  and  goes  on  to  say  that  Mr. 
Froude's  description  of  the  plot  of  the  "  worst  novel 
he  ever  read  "  applies  literally  to  the  "  New  Abelard  " 
— a  palpable  mistake  in  so  correct  a  newspaper, 
seeing  that  the  book  referred  to  is  a  story,  by  the 
same  author,  called  "  Foxglove  Manor." 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  331 

Now,  to  be  bracketed  for  condemnation  along 
with  so  earnest  and  high-minded  a  writer  as  Mr. 
Harrison  is  so  great  a  compliment,  that  I  could  be 
well  content  to  let  Mr.  Froude  go  stumping  the  Pacific 
Islands  without  one  word  of  protest,  if  the  question 
1  were  a  merely  personal  one.  Mr.  Froude  at 
the  Antipodes  is  so  much  more  harmless  a  figure 
than  Mr.  Froude  at  Chelsea,  that  he  might  rail  there 
to  his  heart's  content,  without  darkening  my  sun- 
shine. But  the  fault  he  finds  with  me  being  that 
I  call  him  the  "  slipshod  Nemesis,"  or  mischief- 
making  and  meddling  literary  lady,  who  destroyed 
the  reputation  of  the  late  Mr.  Carlyle,  I  wish  to 
repeat,  here  as  elsewhere,  my  opinion  that  Nemesis 
in  this  instance  did  a  service  to  society,  and  that,  for 
once  in  his  literary  career,  Mr.  Froude  was,  uncon- 
sciously, veracious.  Mr.  Froude,  wishing  to  know 
"what  manner  of  man  did  not  admire  Carlyle,"  studied 
"Foxglove  Manor/'  was  shocked  at  its  plot  and 
scandalised  at  its  morality.  I,  wishing  to  know 
what  manner  of  man  it  is  that  did  admire  Carlyle, 
and  think  him  the  first  of  human  beings,  long  ago 
studied  Mr.  Froude,  and  was  not  at  all  astonished  to 
discover  in  him  the  "halting  Fury"  (as  he  himself 
expresses  it)  who  was  to  avenge  human  nature  on  the 
worshipper  of  brute  will  and  brute  force.  Ever  since 
I  could  read  and  think,  Carlyle's  teachings,  or 
preaching,  or  railings,  however  one  chooses  to  term 
them,  have  been  my  abomination.  Twenty  years 
ago  I  said,  as  I  say  now,  that  the  style  was  worthy  of 
the  man,  and  that  both  were  worthy  the  admiration 
of  a  foolish  and  uninstructed  generation  as  yet 
unaware  of  Mr.  Spencer.  This,  of  course,  is  one  of 
many  indications  of  what  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette 
calls  my  "  fatal  bad  taste." 


332  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

At  the  same  time,  I  would  not  have  the  public 
think  me  blind  to  the  infinite  pity  of  Carlyle's 
biography ;  for  even  Mr.  Froude's  bungling  could 
not  destroy  that.  Noble  and  beautiful  is  the  lesson 
that  such  a  history  teaches  us  ;  far  more  noble  and 
beautiful,  to  my  mind,  than  all  the  clamorous  trash 
about  laborare  est  orare,  than  all  the  sham  of  what  I 
have  christened  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Printer's 
Devil.  What  I  gather  there  is  what  every  man 
should  learn — that  literary  fame  and  hard  literary 
work  are  nothing,  if  the  famous  man  and  the  worker, 
while  preaching  self-reliance  and  self-abnegation,  for- 
gets those  who  love  him  and  makes  of  his  own  house  a 
hell.  The  love  or  the  hate  of  humanity  begins  at  home, 
and  we  are  lost  or  redeemed  by  the  prayers  of  those 
near  ones  whom  we,  through  love  or  hate,  have  made 
happy  or  unhappy.  That  the  true  insight  of  self- 
sanctifying  affection  came  to  Carlyle  at  last,  we  all 
know  now.  It  came  to  him  when  he  was  a  feeble 
old  man,  looking  for  a  vanished  face  in  the  fire.  It 
never  came  to  him  when  he  was  coarsely  fulminating 
against  the  suffering  masses  of  mankind,  drinking 
tea  with  Lady  Ashburton,  and  talking  platitudes 
about  Work  in  the  name  of  a  God  in  whom  he  had 
never  even  the  glimmer  of  a  living  faith. 

Doubtless,  Work  is  a  good  thing  ;  but  Carlyle 
liked  his  work,  was  by  instinct  and  habit  a  literary 
worker,  and  found  the  whole  business,  in  his  un- 
gracious way,  pleasant.  It  would  be  sheer  cant  for 
a  busy  linendraper  or  an  active  bricklayer  to  make 
the  welkin  ring  with  praises  of  the  dignity  of  linen- 
draping  and  the  nobility  of  laying  bricks  ;  it  is  even 
more  insufferable  cant  for  the  literary  man  to  sound 
paeans  about  the  self-sacrifice  of  making  books. 
Carlyle  liked  his  work,  got  both  fame  and  money 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETS  A.M.  333 

for  it,  and  was  covetous  of  both.  Posterity  has  now 
to  appraise,  apart  from  all  tall  talk  and  atrabilarious 
grumbling,  what  the  work  was  worth.  I  believe  that 
posterity  will  decide  with  me — that  it  was  not  worth 
one  solitary  hour  of  domestic  misconception,  that,, 
cast  in  the  balance,  it  would  all  be  outweighted  by 
one  of  Jane  Welsh's  secret  tears.  Carlyle's  books, 
indeed,  possess  all  the  worst  qualities  of  the  lower 
transcendentalism.  The  Gospel  according  to  the 
Printer's  Devil  was  wrought  in  scorn  and  bitterness 
instead  of  love,  and  so  its  literary  Messiah  took  the 
lineaments  of  Goethe,  and  its  Apocalypse  has  been 
spoken  at  the  gates  of  Paris  by  Bismarck.  For  my 
own  part,  I  would  as  soon  frame  my  religion  on  the 
scheme  of  Carlyle's  choosing  as  I  would  base  my 
ideal  of  biography  on  the  masterpiece  of  Mr.  Froude.. 
Bogus  reputations  tumble  down  like  houses  of 
sand.  Simple  truth  and  faithful  love  are  things  that 
abide  for  ever.  I  respect  Mr.  Froude  for  his  fidelity 
to  the  king  his  bungling  has  dethroned,  and  when  he 
himself  has  lost  his  master's  scolding  trick,  I  will 
cheerfully  join  with  him  in  reverencing  the  ashes  of 
Thomas  Carlyle. 


VI. 
"L'EXILEE"  IN   ENGLISH* 

IN  poetry  as  well  as  in  personal  ornament,  filagree  is. 
sometimes  very  charming.  The  mere  ghost  of  an 
idea,  set  to  tremulous  music,  appears  more  seductive 
than  a  substantial  reality  of  the  imagination  ;  while  a 

*  "L'Exile'e."    By   Francois   Coppe'e.     Done  into   English 
verse  by  J.  O.  L.     London  :  Kegan  Paul. 


334  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

bit  of  sentiment,  slight  in  itself  but  capable  of  being 
indefinitely  beaten  out,  derives  from  its  very  slender- 
ness  a  pathos  which   few  can    resist.     A  noticeable 
member  of  the  filagree  school  of  poets  is  M.  Francois 
Coppee.     Perhaps   few   writers,  even    of  verse,   ever 
started  with  so  small  a  capital.     Beyond  the  gift  of 
verbal  melody,   which  he   certainly  possesses    in   an 
unusual  degree,  and  a  certain  pensive   sweetness  of 
mood,  he  possesses  none  of  the  stock-in-trade  which 
forms   the   natural   prerogative    of  poets :    little   or 
no  shaping  imagination,  no  great  insight,  no  special 
love  of  nature,  no  passion,  and  no  power.     Despite 
all  this,  he  uses   his   one    advantage   so   admirably, 
he   fashions   his   filagree    so    prettily,  that  it   would 
be  hard  to  deny  him  the  name  of  poet.     In  what 
is  perhaps    his    most    original    and    coherent   work, 
"  Le    Luthier    de    Cremone,"    a   poem    written    for 
the   theatre   and    acted    with   no    little   success,   he 
fascinates  attention  by  pure  charm  and  simplicity  of 
manner;  while  in  "  Le  Passant/' another  contribution 
to  the  stage,  in  which  Mdlle.  Agar  created  a  most 
witching   impression,    and    Sarah    Bernhardt   played 
with    a    certain    weird    power,    he    produces,    with 
materials  even  more  slender,  the  same  spiritualising 
effect.     He  is,  nevertheless,  more  like  the  shadow  of 
a  singer  than  a  real  bard  full  of  the  knowledge  and 
tendencies  of  his  time;    and  his  faint  little  melodies 
in  the  minor  key  win  us  like  JEolian  murmurs  from 
Shadow-land. 

In  "  L'Exilee,"  perhaps  his  most  popular  poem, 
or  series  of  poems,  M.  Coppee  passes  from  one 
dim  mood  to  another  with  the  ease  of  a  melancholy 
spirit.  Each  poem  is  a  little  sigh,  very  human,  yet 
curiously  insubstantial.  The  difficulty  of  translating 
such  pieces  seemed  to  me  insuperable,  but  the  present 


FLOTSAM  A.\D  JETSAM.  335 

translator,  with  a  singular  felicity  and  lightness  ot 
touch,  turns  French  into  English  filagree  most  delight- 
fully. Only  a  lady,  I  should  fancy,  could  have 
done  the  work  with  such  dexterity  —  in  a  man's 
coarse  hand  the  little  book  would  have  been  crushed 
like  the  nestful  of  delicate  eggs  mentioned  in  "  Espoir 
timide"  : 

Ch£re  enfant,  qu'avant  tout  vos  volontes  soient  faites  ! 
Mais,  comme  on  trouve  un  nid  rempli  d'ceufs  de  fauvettes, 
Vous  avez  ramasse"  mon  cocur  sur  le  chemin. 

Si  de  1'aneantir  vous  aviez  le  caprice, 

Vous  n'auriez  qu'a  fermer  brusquement  votre  main, 

— Mais  vous  ne  voudrez  pas,  j'en  suis  sur,  qu'il  perisse  ! 

Here  and  there,  of  course,  the  necessity  of  faith- 
fulness to  the  original  causes  awkward  turns  and 
involutions,  but  this  was  inevitable.  Only  those  who 
have  attempted  similar  work — who  have  tried  to 
tackle  Heine,  for  example — know  the  difficulty  of 
producing  such  a  translation  as  the  following  : 

NATURE'S  PITY. 

In  grief  the  senses  grow  more  fine  ; 

Alas  !  my  darling's  gone  from  me  ! — 
And  in  all  Nature,  I  divine 

There  lurks  a  secret  sympathy. 

The  noisy  nests,  I  half  believe, 

Their  bickerings  for  me  restrain, 
The  flowers  for  my  trouble  grieve, 

The  stars  feel  pity  for  my  pain. 

The  linnet  almost  seems  ashamed 

To  sing  aloud  his  joyous  song  ; 
The  lily  knows  her  fragrance  blamed, 

The  stars  confess  they  do  me  wrong. 

Within  their  sweetness  I  discern 

Only  my  sweet,  too  long  away  ! 
And  for  her  breath,  eyes,  voice,  I  yearn, 

Like  lily,  star,  and  linnet's  lay. 

This  is  felicitous,  without  being  positively  faultless. 


336  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

The  original  is  a  mere  tender  breathing,  hardly  a 
lyric,  lacking  altogether  the  heart-crushing  strength 
of  the  wail  in  "Ye  Banks  and  Braes."  When  Burns 
takes  Nature  into  his  sympathy  he  does  so  like  a 
strong  man  yielding  to  overmastering  tenderness ; 
his  utterance  is  a  deep-chested  groan  more  than  a 
sigh  from  the  mouth.  Even  Tannahill  is  more  robust 
than  M.  Coppee.  In  poems  like  the  one  I  have 
quoted  Coppee  shows  the  influence  of  Heine  more 
than  that  of  any  other  poet,  except,  perhaps, 
Lamartine.  The  following  piece  is  very  much  in 
Heine's  manner,  simple  and  symbolic  : 

THE  THREE  BIRDS. 

"  Fly  over  corn-fields,"  I  said  to  the  dove, 

"  And  beyond  the  meadow-land  sweet  with  hay, 
Pluck  me  the  flower  to  win  her  love  !  " 
Said  the  dove — "  'Tis  too  far  away  !" 

And  I  said  to  the  eagle — "  Mount  with  speed 
On  soaring  pinion — steal  from  the  sky 

The  heavenly  fire  that  perchance  I  need !  " 
Said  the  eagle—"  It  is  too  high !  " 

Then  I  said  to  the  vulture — "  This  heart  devour, 
Borne  down  by  its  love  and  its  sorrow's  weight, 

Spare  only  what  has  escaped  the  power  !  " 
Said  the  vulture—"  'Tis  too  late  !  " 

"  L'Exilee  "  consists  of  exactly  twenty  little  poems 
of  this  kind,  all  more  or  less  sentimental,  and  having 
for  their  subject  the 

Fair  child  with  sweet  eyes,  O  Norway's  pale  rose, 

mentioned  in  the  dedication.  It  is  in  fact  merely  the 
chronicle  of  the  attachment  of  the  poet  for  a  young 
lady  "  seventeen  years  "  his  junior.  Her  charms  are 
thus  explicitly  described : 

Oft  musing,  with  hand  on  my  eyes,  I  behold 

Her  lithe  form  and  small  head,  with  the  pallid go  la 

Of  her  hair  cut  short  on  her  forehead  white. 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  337 

Poet  and  lady  meet  on  the  banks  of  Lake  Leman, 
and  after  a  formal  introduction  become  acquainted. 
The  progress  of  the  gentleman's  feelings  is  minutely 
described  in  the  lyrics,  which  follow  each  other  in 
thoughtfully  devised  sequence.  In  the  piece  called 
"  Pre-existence "  the  poet  fancies  that  they  have 
met  before  in  some  serene  world. 

And  when  in  thine  eyes  I  mirrored  my  own, 

I  knew  we  had  lived  in  the  ages  long  gone  ; 

And  haunted  since  then  by  a  nameless  yearning, 

To  the  heavens  my  dream  is  ever  returning, 

Our  birthland  there  to  discover  I  try  ; 

And  soon  as  night  mounts  up  the  eastern  sky 

My  glances  seek  in  the  glittering  dome 

The  stars  that  may,  whilom,  have  been  our  home  ! 

Of  all  this  love  nothing  serious  comes,  and  the  lady 
passes  gently  away  from  the  horizon  of  her  admirer, 
reflecting,  perhaps,  that  it  would  require  even  more 
sentiment  than  he  possesses  to  get  over  the  disparity 
of  "  seventeen  years."  "  Then  pity  me  not,  though 
even  I  die  ! "  the  poet  cries  in  conclusion.  One  does 
not  feel  much  inclined  to  pity  him.  His  grief  is  too 
insubstantial  to  last,  and  one  feels  that  he  will  get  over 
it.  As  for  the  poems,  they  are,  as  I  have  said,  the 
veriest  filagree  or  gossamer ;  yet  as  here  translated, 
they  are  very  attractive.  The  hand  that  can  do  such 
dainty  work  so  well  ought  not  to  be  idle  in  the 
future,  and  I  hope  that  it  will  give  us  more  transla- 
tions. To  have  succeeded  at  all  with  so  faint  a 
singer  as  Coppde  is  a  triumph  of  literary  manipula- 
tion ;  but  I  should  like  the  translator  next  time 
to  leave  this  thin  ghost  of  a  poet  alone  and  to  touch 
something  more  robust. 


338  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

VII. 
THE  CHURCH   AND   THE  STAGE. 

APROPOS  of  a  poetical  drama  from  my  pen,  on  the 
subject  of  Lady  Jane  Grey,  I  was  once  accused  of 
fostering  religious  dissension,  by  representing  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  in  an  unfavourable  light. 
Even  a  friendly  foreign  journal,  I' Independance  Beige, 
in  criticising  the  Nine  Days  Queen,  observed :  "  Le 
role  de  I'dveque  de  Winchester  est  sacrifie  a  1'indig- 
nation  publique,  qui,  apres  avoir  applaudi  1'acteur, 
accable  de  ses  sifflets  et  de  ses  grognements  le 
personnage  antipathique."  I  am  quite  willing  to 
admit  that  the  nightly  excitement,  the  applause 
lavished  on  the  sentiments  of  Lady  Jane  Grey,  the 
hisses  and  groans  showered  upon  her  persecutors,  did 
seem  to  warrant  the  hypothesis  of  religious  bias ; 
but  this  hypothesis  is  only  superficial  after  all,  and 
the  same  sympathy  and  antipathy  would  follow  the 
victim  and  the  persecutor  under  any  circumstances, 
quite  apart  from  polemical  predisposition.  That 
Lady  Jane  belongs  to  the  "  royal  army  of  martyrs," 
I  am  aware  ;  I  am  aware,  too,  that  Protestantism  has 
indirectly  canonised  her,  in  the  face  of  its  rejection 
of  all  canonisation  ;  but  the  great  heart  of  the  public 
yearns  to  her,  not  because  she  held  certain  dogmatic 
views,  but  simply  because  she  was  a  beautiful  and 
unfortunate  human  being,  almost  stainless  in  a  stained 
and  cruel  time.  Popular  audiences  care  as  much  about 
Roman  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  as  they  do  about 
Conservatism  and  Liberalism.  They  want  interesting 
characters  and  dramatic  situations  ;  and,  given  these, 
they  will  sympathise  as  liberally  with  one  side  of  the 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  339 

question  as  with  the  other.  For  my  own  part,  as  the 
author  of  this  and  other  plays,  I  wish  to  record  my 
complete  indifference  to  religious  bias.  I  have  taken 
a  few  historical  facts,  which  are  indisputable,  and 
tried  to  make  a  picturesque  and  pathetic  play  out  of 
them ;  voild  tout.  Personally,  I  feel  as  much  an- 
tipathy to  Lady  Jane  Grey's  bigotry  as  to  that  of 
Mary  Tudor.  I  know  that  both  Catholics  and 
Protestants  have  torn  each  other  asunder  from  time 
immemorial,  and  that  they  would  be  doing  so  still 
if  modern  science  and  modern  free  thought — yes,  and 
modern  dramatic  art ! — had  not  arisen,  to  light  the 
dark  places  of  Acheronian  controversy.  Each  side 
has  its  martyrs,  and  all  martyrs,  all  victims  of  a 
tyrannical  majority,  appeal,  by  virtue  of  the  pathetic 
fallacy  overtaking  them,  to  the  tenderness  and  solici- 
tude of  human  nature. 

But  putting  aside  this  partly  personal  question, 
I  wish  to  touch  upon  another  point,  of  larger  and 
deeper  interest  to  society  at  large.  I  wish  to  ask, 
in  the  name  of  common  sense,  what  reason  there  is 
that  the  Stage  should  spare  the  Church,  seeing  that 
the  Church  has  been,  and  still  remains,  the  im- 
placable enemy  of  the  Stage — nay,  of  Art  and  Poetry 
in  general  ?  I  wish  to  demand  on  what  ground  the 
Drama  is  to  hush  up  the  monstrous  crimes  of  Religion, 
when  Religion  parades  so  libellously  the  veriest  follies 
of  the  Drama  ?  I  know  that  it  is  the  opinion  of  many 
worthy  people  that  dramatic  art  would  be  elevated 
if  it  could  once  conquer  the  prejudice  of  the  so-called 
"  religious  "  world  ;  and  we  have  therefore  witnessed, 
in  Church  and  Stage  Guilds,  at  pious  tea-drinkings, 
where  the  theatre  has  been  discussed  apologetically, 
a  timid  desire  on  the  part  of  the  theatrical  profession 
to  conciliate  the  hereditary  foes  of  the  theatre.  Were 

z  2 


340  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

I  the  mouthpiece  of  dramatic  Art,  however,  I  should 

adopt  a  very  different  attitude.     I  should  say  to  the 

Church :  "  Before  you  point  out  the  mote  in  our  eyes, 

remember  the  beam  in  your  own.     You  tell  us  of 

the  evil  that  the  stage  has  done,  of  its  tendency  to 

corrupt  society.     Let  us  in  return  tell  you  what  the 

stage   has    not  done..    It   has   never   usurped  God's 

right  over  the   consciences  and  the  souls  of  men  ; 

it  has   never   falsified    documents,   perverted    facts, 

prostituted  itself  in  the  lust  for  power  ;  though  it  has 

a  long  catalogue  of  martyrs,  it  has  had  no  Inquisition 

and  no  official  persecutor ;  the  record  of  its  bad  deeds 

is  not  written  in  the  blood  of  butchered  women  and 

children  ;    it  has  never  burned  a  Bruno  or  tortured  a 

Galileo ;    it  has    never   hunted    down    an  Adrienne 

Lecouvreur  during  life,  and  refused  her  decent  burial 

when  dead ;  it  has  never,  in  a  word,  based  its  success 

or  failure  on  the  sorrow  or  the  suffering  of  human 

nature/'     Then,  if  the    Church  retorted   that  these 

things  were  only  of  the  past,  I  should  explain  that,  if 

they  are  so,  if  religious  intolerance  is  now  reduced  to 

a  minimum,  thanks  are  due,  not  to  the  Church,  but 

to  the  Stage — to  that  art  whose  immortal  teachers, 

from  Shakespeare  downwards,  have  exposed  the  false 

perversions    and    pretensions    of    other- worldliness. 

Tartuffe    would   still   be   a  social   possibility   if  the 

Stage  had  not  sent  society  its  deliverer,  in  Moliere. 

For  the  rest,  I  am  simple  enough  to  believe  that  there 

is  often  more  real  religious  teaching  in  the  theatre 

than  in  the  conventicle.    I  can  find  a  grander  spiritual 

lesson  in  such  a  presentation  as  Mr.  Edwin  Booth's 

King  Lear  than  in  the  columns  of  the  Record  or  the 

preachings  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Boanerges ;  when  I  want 

humour,  or  humorous  pathos,  I  prefer  Mr.  Thomas 

Thome  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Talmage ;  and  altogether,  as 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  341 

an  unregencrate  individual  addicted  to  the  excisable 
liquor  of  dramatic  performances,  I  hold  with  pious 
Mr.  Herbert : 

A  verse  may  catch  him  who  a  sermon  flies, 
And  turn  delight  into  a  sacrifice  ! 

Be  that  as  it  may,  I  for  one  shall  certainly  not  avoid 
a  good  subject,  but  shall  rather  utilise  it  the  more 
eagerly,  because  the  presentation  of  certain  historical 
facts  is  damaging  to  the  Church.  When  the  ^£son 
of  sacerdotalism  is  renewed  by  the  elixir  of  liberalism, 
when  he  casts  off  its  old  lendings  and  recognises  the 
divine  brotherhood  of  all  arts  and  all  religions,  then, 
and  not  till  then,  it  will  be  time  to  say :  "  Let  the 
dead  bury  its  dead ;  no  good  purpose  can  be  served 
now  by  recording  the  crimes  and  cruelties  of  the 
past." 


VIII. 

THE   AMERICAN    SOCRATES. 

I  AM  very  grateful  to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  for 
its  kindly  suggestion  (Christmas,  1886)  that  English- 
men should  send  a  little  tribute  to  Walt  Whitman, 
and  it  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  there  are  some 
Englishmen  with  the  courage,  in  the  face  of  good 
and  ill  report,  to  express  their  sympathy  with 
the  great  American.  As  usual,  when  Whitman's 
name  is  mentioned,  it  is  strenuously  denied  that 
Whitman  is  either  neglected  or  unfortunate.  "  \Ve 
like  the  old  fellow,"  said  Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman  to  me  in 
New  York,  "  and  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  he 
is  unappreciated."  This  sort  of  pitying  patronising 


342  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

praise  may  be  heard  everywhere.  In  the  meantime, 
Whitman  gets  about  as  much  honest  sympathy  from 
the  literary  class  in  America  as  Socrates  did  from  the 
elders  of  the  city.  He  is  simply  outlawed.  I  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying  that  his  little  English  band 
of  admirers,  headed  by  Mr.  William  Rossetti,  have 
secured  for  him  what  little  kindness  he  has  received 
from  his  own  countrymen.  And  who  wonders  ? 
When  Mr.  Stedman  can  devote  his  talents  to  an 
ornithology  of  all  the  singing  birds,  putting  the 
tomtit  in  the  eagle's  cage,  and  seriously  discussing 
the  chirps  of  the  hedge-sparrow,  when  the  ideals  of 
American  criticism  are  Mr.  Lowell,  Mr.  Howells,  and 
Harper's  Magazine,  when  the  reading  public  stupefies 
itself  with  the  dull  Eastern  narcotic  imported  by 
Mr.  Edward  Fitzgerald,  it  is  natural  enough  that 
Walt  Whitman  should  be  let  severely  alone. 
Fortunately,  his  worshippers  out  there  are  fit  though 
few.  I  speedily  discovered  when  in  America  the 
beneficent  influence  of  his  teachings  on  young  men 
and  maidens  of  the  coming  generation. 

In  March,  1885,  I  was  in  Philadelphia,  bringing 
out  a  stupendous  melodrama,  and  one  day  I  found 
myself  crossing  the  crowded  ferry  to  Camden,  on  a 
visit  to  Walt  Whitman.  I  soon  found  the  house 
where  he  dwelt,  for  every  one  knew  it,  and  every  face 
brightened  at  the  old  man's  name  ;  it  is  a  humble 
dwelling  in  a  quiet  street,  very  plainly  furnished,  but 
not  uncomfortable.  When  I  appeared  at  the  door, 
which  was  opened  to  me  by  a  middle-aged,  motherly 
woman,  I  caught  a  glimpse  along  the  lobby  of  a 
patriarchal  figure  seated  in  a  back  room,  and  I  was 
informed  that  Whitman  was  at  dinner,  but  would 
join  me  in  the  front  parlour  directly.  He  soon  came 
in,  supported  on  a  stick,  and  looking  rather  feeble, 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETS.  343 

his  hair  and  beard  long  and  white  as  snow,  the  skin 
of  his  face  crimson  with  the  influence  of  sun  and 
wind.  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  had  a  hearty  welcome. 
I  had  a  lady  with  me,  and  Whitman  was  very  eager 
that  she  should  partake  of  the  feast  on  which  he  had 
been  regaling — solid  American  pie,  washed  down 
with  the  strongest  of  strong  tea.  Inquiry  elicited 
the  fact  that  pie  was  the  main  pabulum  of  Whitman's 
life.  He  eats  no  meat,  or  hardly  any,  and  beyond  a 
little  drop  of  whisky  at  bedtime,  takes  no  stimulants. 
Year  after  year  he  dwells  alone,  waited  on  by  the 
kindly  woman  who  is  at  once  his  friend,  his  servant, 
and  his  nurse.  He  goes  out  daily,  seeking  generally 
the  most  crowded  thoroughfares,  his  favourite  amuse- 
ment being  to  journey  to  and  fro  on  the  steam 
ferryboat,  making  friends  with  all  and  sundry.  For 
Whitman's  democracy  is  no  mere  literary  sentiment, 
but  a  living  instinct.  He  loves  all  forms  of  humanity. 
The  movement  of  human  life  is  divine  music  to  him. 
He  is  quite  happy  thus,  complains  of  nothing,  girns 
at  nothing,  has  a  loving  heart  and  an  open  hand  for 
all  the  world.  He  has  very  few  books,  and  these  few 
are  mostly  gifts  from  the  authors ;  one  from  Mr. 
J.  A.  Symonds  had  just  come  to  him,  with  a  respectful 
inscription  on  the  fly-leaf.  I  found  him  alert  and 
bright  as  any  boy,  greatly  interested  to  hear  about 
English  authors,  especially  Tennyson,  and  very 
anxious  to  visit  the  old  country  before  he  died.  He 
took  us  up  to  his  bedroom  on  the  upper  floor,  showed 
us  the  old  arm-chair  where  he  writes,  and  the  old 
trunks  where  he  keeps  his  books  and  papers.  All 
about  him  was  beautifully  calm  and  "restful."  I  spoke 
of  his  detractors,  and  his  blue  eye  brightened  merrily, 
though  he  could  not  deny  that  some  of  them,  and 
especially  Emerson,  had  used  him  cavalierly.  But 


344  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

what  was  all  that  to  one  who  "  heard  the  roar  of  the 
ages "  ?  As  might  be  expected,  he  cared  little  or 
nothing  about  modern  reputations.  Wagner,  perhaps, 
was  the  only  personality  in  Europe  that  greatly 
attracted  him,  as  to  a  sort  of  equal.  But  I  should 
convey  a  wrong  impression  if  I  suggested  that  he 
was  without  sympathy  for  the  ideas  of  his  contem- 
poraries ;  on  the  contrary,  every  form  of  literary 
activity  is  interesting  to  him.  He  simply  perceives 
as  a  philosopher  the  littleness  of  all  literature  in 
relation  to  life.  Benignly  gentle  and  universally 
tolerant,  he  sits  apart,  "holding  no  form  of  creed, 
but  contemplating  all." 

About  his  poverty  there  can  be  no  question. 
The  pittance  he  gets  from  his  books  would  not  equal 
the  wage  of  an  ordinary  labourer;  the  rest  of  his 
slender  income  is  made  up  of  loving  gifts  from  people 
almost  as  poor  as  himself.  Of  course  he  is  not 
"starving;"  so  long  as  pie  and  tea  suffice  for  his 
nourishment,  he  can  subsist !  But  his  state  is  never- 
theless, from  our  point  of  view,  pitiful.  His  physical 
health  is  frail,  his  days  cannot  be  long  in  the  sun- 
shine, and  his  necessities  are  pressing  enough  to 
make  voluntary  help  acceptable.  In  a  land  of 
millionaires,  in  a  land  of  which  he  will  one  day  be 
known  as  the  chief  literary  glory,  he  is  almost 
utterly  neglected.  Let  there  be  no  question  about 
this  ;  all  denial  of  it  is  disingenuous  and  dishonest. 
The  literary  class  fights  shy  of  him.  The  great 
reading  public  have  been  told  that  he  is  infamously 
immoral.  There  is  nothing  in  his  style  to  attract, 
everything  to  repel,  the  natures  which  batten  on 
Longfellow's  "  Village  Blacksmith "  and  the  stories 
and  engravings  in  the  American  magazines.  Some 
years  ago,  when  he  was  asked  to  contribute  to  a 


FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM.  345 

leading  American  review,  there  was  an  outcry,  and 
the  poor  editor  took  fright.  Countenance  Whitman, 
hankering,  gross,  mystical,  nude,  whom  even  the 
good  Emerson  had  abandoned  ?  The  thing  was  an 
outrage !  The  editor  accepted  the  warning,  and  any 
future  contribution  was  "  declined  with  thanks." 
Whitman  told  me  this,  with  the  merriest  of  twinkles 
in  his  blue  eye. 

"I  likes  to  be  despised,"  said  Uriah  Heep.  I 
don't  know  that  Whitman  likes  to  be  outlawed,  but 
he  is  fully  alive  to  the  prodigious  humour  of  the 
thing.  Sympathy,  on  the  other  hand,  is  sweet  to 
him,  as  to  every  human  being.  He  spoke  with 
loving  gratitude  of  the  Rossettis  and  his  other 
English  friends. 

When  I  shook  hands  with  him  there,  at  the  door 
of  his  little  house  in  Camden,  I  scarcely  realised  the 
great  privilege  that  had  been  given  to  me — that  of 
seeing  face  to  face  the  wisest  and  noblest,  the  most  truly 
great,  of  all  modern  literary  men.  I  hope  yet,  if  I  am 
spared,  to  look  upon  him  again,  for  well  I  know  that 
the  earth  holds  no  such  another  nature.  Nor  do  I 
write  this  with  the  wild  hero-worship  of  a  boy,  but  as 
the  calm,  deliberate  judgment  of  a  man  who  is  far 
beyond  all  literary  predilections  or  passions.  In 
Walt  Whitman  I  see  more  than  a  mere  maker  of 
poems,  I  see  a  personality  worthy  to  rank  even  above 
that  of  Socrates,  akin  even,  though  lower  and  far 
distant,  to  that  of  Him  who  is  considered,  and 
rightly,  the  first  of  men.  I  know  that  if  that  Other 
were  here,  his  reception  in  New  England  might  be 
very  much  the  same.  I  know,  too,  that  in  some  day 
not  so  remote,  humanity  will  wonder  that  men  could 
dwell  side  by  side  with  this  colossus,  and  not  realise 
his  proportions.  We  have  other  poets,  but  we  have 


346  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

no  other  divine  poet.  We  have  a  beautiful  singer  in 
Tennyson,  and  some  day  it  will  be  among  Tennyson's 
highest  honours  that  he  was  once  named  kindly  and 
appreciatively  by  Whitman.  When  I  think  of  that 
gray  head,  gently  bowing  before  the  contempt  of  the 
literary  class  in  America,  when  I  think  that  Boston 
crowns  Emerson  and  turns  aside  from  the  spirit 
potent  enough  to  create  a  hundred  Emersons  and 
leave  strength  sufficient  for  the  making  of  the  whole 
Bostonian  cosmogony,  from  Lowell  upwards,  I  for  a 
moment  lose  patience  with  a  mighty  nation ;  but  only 
for  a  moment :  the  voice  of  my  gentle  master  sounds 
in  my  ear,  and  I  am  reminded  that  if  he  is  great  and 
good,  it  is  because  he  represents  the  greatness  and 
goodness  of  a  free  and  noble  people.  He  would 
not  be  Walt  Whitman,  if  he  did  not  love  his 
contemporaries  more,  not  less,  for  the  ingratitude 
and  misconception  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  who 
have  outlawed  him.  Praise,  and  fame,  and  money  are 
of  course  indifferent  to  him.  He  has  spoken  his 
message,  he  has  lived  his  life,  and  is  content.  But  it 
is  we  that  honour  and  love  him  who  are  not  content, 
while  the  gospel  of  man-millinery  is  preached  in 
every  magazine  and  every  newspaper,  and  every 
literary  money-changer  and  poetaster  has  a  stone 
to  throw  at  the  patient  old  prophet  of  modern 
Democracy. 


FROM    POPE  TO  TENNYSON. 


IN  the  year  1733  that  distinguished  and  prosperous 
poet,  Mr.  Alexander  Pope,  wonder  of  his  age  and 
envy  of  his  contemporaries,  published  anonymously 
the  first  epistle  of  his  "  Essay  on  Man  "  ;  the  second 
and  third  epistles  followed  in  rapid  succession  ;  and, 
finally,  twelve  months  afterwards,  the  fourth  was 
published,  with  the  poet's  name.  Pope  had  from  the 
first  been  suspected  of  the  authorship  of  this  truly 
representative  and  "  moral  "  poem,  which  was  for  ever 
afterwards  to  bear  his  superscription.  The  fame  of 
the  "  Essay  on  Man,"  which,  as  everybody  knows, 
was  a  sort  of  poetical  adumbration  (and  perversion) 
of  the  views  of  Bolingbroke,  was  widespread  and 
instantaneous.  Translations  appeared  in  all  lan- 
guages, and  disquisitions,  in  which  the  poet's  views 
were  advocated  or  combated,  were  numerous  in  our 
own.  Certainly  no  poem  could  be  more  typical  of 
its  period,  or  could  represent  better  the  elegant 
fatalism  of  that  literary  and  philosophical  group  of 
which  Pope  was  the  mouthpiece  and  the  ornament. 
A  century  passed  away.  The  reign  of  the  distin- 
guished Mr.  Pope  was  forgotten,  nay,  almost  mythical 
in  its  incredibility  from  the  point  of  view  of  modern 
criticism. 

Soles  occidere,  et  redire  possum, 

but  a  literary  sun,  once  thoroughly  set,  seldom  com- 


348  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

pletely  re-emerges.  Mr.  Pope  was  dust,  and  we  were 
under  the  reign  of  Mr.  Tennyson.  Rather  more  than 
a  hundred  years  after  the  publication  of  the  "  Essay 
on  Man "  appeared,  also  anonymously,  "  In  Me- 
moriam."  The  success  of  this  fine  poem,  in  which, 
as  we  all  know,  an  elegant  literary  scepticism  is 
lightly  dashed  with  emotion  and  carefully  spiced 
with  science,  was  also  instantaneous.  The  work  was 
at  once  accepted  as  typical,  and  as  representing  the 
finest  tendencies  of  the  time.  More  than  that,  it 
became  at  once  a  text-book  and  a  quotation-book. 
It  was  just  philosophic  enough  to  suit  all  poetic  needs, 
and  just  poetic  enough  to  please  practical  philo- 
sophers. Its  power  of  supplying  apt  and  memor- 
able passages  at  least  equalled  that  of  the  "  Essay 
on  Man."  Our  great-grandfathers,  with  quivering 
nostrils  and  faltering  voices,  could  proclaim  in 
measured  cadence  the  wonders  of  that  Deity, 

Who  sees  with  equal  eye,  as  God  of  all, 

A  hero  perish  or  a  sparrow  fall, 

Atoms  or  systems  into  ruin  hurled, 

And  now  a  bubble  burst,  and  now  a  world  ; 

and  could  add,  not  without  solemnity, 

Know  then  thyself,  presume  not  God  to  scan  ; 
The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man. 

We,  no  less  fortunate,  could  speak  gently  of  a  God, 

That  God,  which  ever  lives  and  moves, 

One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 

And  one  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves  ; 

and  could  add,  with  a  touch  of  tenderness  unknown 
to  our  grandfathers,  that 

Merit  lives  from  man  to  man, 

And  not  from  man,  O  Lord,  to  thee. 

But  in  either  case  the  fountain  of  quotation  was  a 


FROM  POPE   TO    TENNYSOX.  349 

poem  representative,  to  use  the  slang  expression,  of 
"  the  best  culture  of  the  time,"  and  of  the  time's  most 
typical  poet. 

Doubtless  in  those  days,  as  in  these,  there  were 
dissentient  voices,  voices  of  a  minority  which  rejected 
Mr.  Pope's  elegant  fatalism  as  indignantly  as  it  is 
possible  to  reject  the  refined  scepticism  of  Mr. 
Tennyson.  And  in  good  truth  the  "  Essay  on  Man  " 
is  not  much  more  stimulating  than  a  page  of  the 
renowned  St.  John  himself.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  the  period,  nevertheless,  it  was  simply  sublime, 
and  was  accepted  by  its  generation  with  a  faith  as 
implicit  as  that  which  the  immortal  "poor  Indian,"  in 
its  own  pages,  gave  to  his  God.  Its  very  defects 
hastened  this  happy  consummation.  Delightful  be- 
yond measure  were  its  endless  twists  and  turns  of  a 
tautological  yet  pliant  metre ;  exquisite  were  its 
placid  truisms,  its  fine  platitudes,  its  fluent  conserva- 
tion of  the  popular  sentiment.  The  age  was  one  of 
moral  essays,  and  this  was  a  moral  essay  without 
an  equal.  Compared  with  the  "  Essay  on  Man/' 
and  judged  by  the  standard  of  a  later  period,  "  In 
Memoriam "  is,  from  every  point  of  view,  vastly 
superior;  indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  period 
when  its  finest  passages  will  fail,  as  Pope's  finest 
passages  now  fail,  to  awaken  polite  enthusiasm.  As 
a  piece  of  workmanship  it  is  singularly  beautiful — 
almost  too  beautiful,  in  a  certain  sense,  to  be  quite 
satisfying  as  an  intellectual  stimulus.  In  the  pro- 
fundity of  its  philosophical  insight,  and  the  magnifi- 
cence of  its  poetical  images,  moreover,  it  is  as  far 
above  Mr.  Pope  at  his  best  as  Pope  himself  was 
above  the  herd  he  ridiculed  in  the  "  Dunciad."  To 
say  so  much,  indeed,  is  only  to  say  that  it  is  the 
peculiar  outcome  of  a  generation  which  was  saturated 


350  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

in  its  youth  with  the  sublime  mysticism  of  Coleridge 
and  Shelley,  and  which,  a  little  later  on,  stood 
wondering  at  the  "  faery  tales  of  Science."  But  with 
all  this,  and  despite  the  charm  of  an  incomparable  lyric 
light,  it  is  quite  too  fine  a  piece  of  work  to  answer  our 
present  speculative  needs.  Its  grief  is  not  moving 
grief,  and  its  speculation  is  not  kindling  speculation. 

The  very  structure  of  the  poem,  in  its  laboriously 
easy  monotony,  is  against  its  permanence  as  a  poetic 
force  or  a  great  literary  stimulus.  Readers  at  the 
present  moment  are  not  wanting  who  have  forgotten 
its  existence  altogether,  and  who,  in  moments  of 
anxiety  and  insight,  would  sooner  turn  for  stimulus  to 
a  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Job,  or  even  a  rugged  page 
of  the  persecuted  Walt  Whitman. 

The  penalty  of  such  perfection  as  is  easily  dis- 
tinguishable in  such  widely  differing  poems  as  the 
"Essay  on  Man  "  and  "  In  Memoriam,"  is  the  penalty 
which  attends  typical  literary  products  of  all  kinds  ; 
for  it  need  scarcely  be  added  that  it  is  not  in  acqui- 
escent or  explanatory  moods,  however  representative 
of  "  the  best  culture  of  the  time,"  that  great  poetical 
creations  are  developed.  If  Mr.  Tennyson*  were  only 
the  philosopher  of  "  In  Memoriam,"  there  would  be 
some  danger  of  his  being  even  summarily  forgotten. 
Being  what  he  is,  one  of  the  loveliest  singers  of  this 
time  and  of  all  time,  and  an  unique  craftsman  whose 
sign  manual  is  sufficient  to  consecrate  almost  any 
piece  of  work,  he  need  not  fear  the  results  of  a 
criticism  which  must  sooner  or  later  leave  him  among 
the  lyrical  and  perfecting,  instead  of  among  the  philo- 
sophical and  creative,  singers.  What  the  divine 
group,  which  preceded  him,  left  ill-expressed,  half- 
expressed,  or  only  hinted,  he  has  turned  into  miracles 
*  Now  Lord  Tennyson. 


FROM  POPE   TO   TENNYX-  351 

of  musical  speech.  Ideas  which  the  world  passed  by 
in  the  pages  of  Wordsworth  and  Shelley,  it  has 
hailed  with  idolatry  in  the  Laureate's  stately  setting. 
Truths,  which  Science  carelessly  and  clumsily  re- 
vealed, have  been  turned  by  him  into  those  jewel* 
five  words  long, 

Which,  on  the  stretched  forefinger  of  all  time, 
Sparkle  for  ever. 

He  differs,  moreover,  from  Pope  in  this,  that  he  is 
primarily  and  cardinally  the  poet  of  a  poetical  era, 
not,  strictly  speaking,  the  poetical  oracle  of  the  era 
of  essays  and  essayists  now  again  beginning. 

Though  all  that  I  have  said  must  be  self-evident 
and  even  commonplace  to  most  advanced  students  of 
modern  poetry,  it  was  still  inevitable  that  many  critics 
should  accept  Mr.  Tennyson's  more  meditative  utter- 
ances as  a  final  gospel,  and  should  pass  by  as  irrele- 
vant the  utterances  of  such  of  his  contemporaries  as 
do  not  follow  his  school  of  literary  perfection.  In  a 
little  work  which  I  have  now  before  me,*  it  seems  laid 
down  as  a  canon  that  Mr.  Tennyson's  method  of 
approaching  the  great  questions  of  life  and  death  is 
the  only  correct  method  of  approach,  and  that  the 
results  of  that  method  are  finally  and  wholly  satis- 
fying. Mr.  Selkirk,  a  man  of  undeniable  cleverness 
and  culture,  has  attempted  in  half-a-dozen  striking 
essays  to  touch  a  subject  which,  as  it  seems  to  us, 
often  eludes  his  method  of  treatment.  His  style  is 
admirable,  his  manner  finished  in  the  extreme,  but 
his  summaries  of  the  leading  positions  he  wishes  to 
establish  are  at  times  incorrect  and  not  always  con- 
vincing. Fortunately,  or  unfortunately,  he  does  not 


*  "  Ethics  and  Esthetics  of  Modern   Poetry."     By  J.  B. 
Selkirk.     London  :  Smith,  Elder,  &  Co. 


352  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

write  with  a  clerical  brief,  but  for  all  that  writes  with 
a  religious  bias.  The  general  argument  to  be  gathered 
from  his  book  is  that  of  Pope  :  "  Whatever  is,  is 
right/'  with  this  corollary,  that  an  attitude  of  emo- 
tional scepticism  is  highly  admirable,  provided  it 
leaves  the  main  problems  open  and  does  not  infringe 
too  much  on  the  rights  of  the  party  in  power. 

This  being  the  case,  it  may  be  easily  understood 
that  Mr.  Selkirk  is  thoroughly  satisfied  with  Mr. 
Tennyson's  representation  of  current  philosophical 
problems.  His  criticisms  on  Mr.  Tennyson's  method 
are  quite  admirable,  while  still,  as  I  have  suggested, 
unconvincing.  He  commends  with  strict  justice  the 
Laureate's  "  Socratean  faculty  of  seeing  both  sides  of 
a  question  with  equal  power,  which  has  enabled  him 
to  become,  in  so  important  a  sense,  the  interpreter  of 
the  transitional  character  of  the  philosophy,  religion, 
and,  to  some  extent,  the  politics  of  his  time ;  his 
power  to  stand  on  the  debateable  ground  on  which 
these  questions  are  discussed,  giving  strong  poetical 
force  to  each  of  the  opposing  factions,  and  yet  remain 
himself  untouched  and  untainted  by  what  he  would 
himself  call  'The  falsehood  of  extremes/"  But, 
alas  !  it  is  this  very  "  Socratean  faculty,"  so  much 
commended  by  Mr.  Selkirk,  which  absolutely  pre- 
vents Mr.  Tennyson,  in  his  philosophical  flights, 
from  achieving  the  very  highest  poetry.  No  sublime 
seer  of  the  human  race — call  him  what  we  will,  Isaiah, 
Lucretius,  Dante,  Bunyan,  Wordsworth,  or  Victor 
Hugo — has  astonished  his  contemporaries  by  "seeing 
both  sides  of  a  question  with  equal  power" — quite 
otherwise.  The  condition  of  inspiration  in  these  and 
other  great  prophetic  or  prophesying  poets  has  been 
the  power  of  forgetting  that  there  are  two  sides  of  a 
question  at  all !  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 


FROM  POPE   TO   TENNYSON.  353 

every  great  poet  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  bigot,  and 
that  his  inspiration  is  in  proportion  to  his  bigotry  ; 
and,  making  the  necessary  deductions,  I  believe  this 
to  be  a  true  statement  of  the  case. 

Mr.  Tennyson  himself,  who  is  certainly  a  great 
poet,  if  not  of  the  highest  order,  is  highest  and  best 
where  his  faculty  is  most  fearlessly  lyrical  and  least 
"  Socratean." 

Mr.  Selkirk  would  doubtless  dissent  from  my 
classification  of  Shelley  and  Hugo  among  the 
supreme  seers.  His  treatment  of  Shelley  is  not 
altogether  respectful.  He  tells  about  his  "  strangely 
persistent"  denial  of  Christianity,  "and  indeed  of 
God,"  but  observes  with  surprise,  nevertheless,  that 
"  in  his  inspired  moments,  he  became  the  unconscious 
interpreter  of  the  higher  nature,  and  to  a  certain 
extent,  became  reverential  and  devout  in  spite  of 
himself"  (page  182).  He  adds"  (and  here,  for  example, 
we  have  the  clerical  bias  strongly  marked):  "  It  is 
not  to  be  denied,  however,  that  too  many  of  our 
great  poets,  fevered  by  that  kind  of  dithyrambic 
which  so  easily  besets  the  genus  irritabile  vatum,  have 
frequently  made  attempts  to  curse  what  a  higJitr 
power  than  theirs  has  seen  fit  to  bless."  It  is  a  very 
common  habit  of  critics  far  inferior  to  Mr.  Selkirk 
to  treat  all  forms  of  revolt  as  a  sort  of  "  dithyrambic 
madness,"  and  to  rebuke  revolters  for  cursing  what  a 
providential  dispensation  has  blessed — generally  with 
the  loaves  and  fishes.  But  if  Mr.  Selkirk  means  to 
suggest  that  Shelley  in  his  "  inspired  moments/'  when 
"he  became  the  unconscious  interpreter  of  the  higher 
nature,"  ever  confounded  that  higher  nature  with 
Christianity  or  Deism,  I  beg  to  differ.  Shelley  was 
always  "  reverential  and  devout "  in  presence  of  those 
divine  Mysteries  which  he  declined  to  approach 

2  A 


354  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

through  the  vestibules  of  any  of  the  creeds  ;  though 
certainly,  in  his  inspired  moments,  he  never  achieved 
the  "  Socratean"  distinction  of  seeing  "both  sides  of 
a  question  at  once."  He  was  a  revolter  pure  and 
simple,  and  in  his  sublimest  moods  he  was  pre-emi- 
nently a  revolter.  I  really  dislike  this  Jesuitical  plan 
of  suggesting  that  such  a  man  as  Shelley  was  com- 
pelled at  times,  through  providential  inflation,  to  bear 
witness  in  favour  of  the  enemy.  It  is  not  worthy  of 
a  writer  so  humane  as  Mr.  Selkirk.  Then,  again, 
as  to  Victor  Hugo ;  in  a  work  devoted  to  the  ethics 
and  aesthetics  of  modern  poetry,  one  would  have 
expected  some  slight  reference  to  one  who  is,  with- 
out exception,  the  most  didactic  poet  of  the  time, 
But  Mr.  Selkirk  trots  cheerfully  along,  as  if  quite 
unconscious  of  any  living  literary  forces  outside  the 
Victorian  circle.  For  all  that  I  know,  he  has  never 
even  heard  of  one  whom  a  few  benighted  individuals 
in  England  esteem  the  greatest  living  poetic  teacher 
of  all,  Walt  Whitman. 

I  have  already  said,  and  I  now  take  the  pains 
to  reiterate,  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  wisdom  in 
Mr.  Selkirk's  book,  but  I  must  explain  that  it  is 
at  times  rather  old-fashioned  wisdom.  In  spite  of 
innumerable  fine  things,  of  many  really  superb 
passages,  the  whole  effect  is  spoiled  by  the  clerical 
(or  conservative)  bias,  and  by  the  complete  absence 
of  any  leading  or  dominant  idea.  Mr.  Selkirk  is,  in 
fact,  like  many  others  we  might  name,  a  microscopic 
critic  ;  his  minute  observations  are  admirable,  but  his 
generalisations  too  often  lack  breadth  and  novelty. 
In  order  to  sustain  this  statement  with  some  slight 
proof,  let  me  return  for  a  moment  to  his  treatment  of 
Mr.  Tennyson. 

Mr.   Tennyson    is,   of  course,  according  to   Mr. 


FROM  POPE   TO   TENNYSON.  355 

Selkirk,  the  central  sun  of  the  Victorian  system,  the 
finish  beyond  which  perfection  cannot  go.  Words 
arc  insufficient  to  praise  the  masterly  style  in  which 
the  Laureate  keeps  the  golden  mean.  He  "beats 
his  music  out "  to  an  accompaniment  in  which 
neither  the  sophistries  of  science  nor  the  casuistries 
of  a  half-hearted  orthodoxy  find  any  place.  "  For 
such  a  task  a  brave  and  freedom-loving  man  was 
wanted,  one  that  in  his  own  phrase  was  ready  to 
follow  truth  in  scorn  of  consequence,  and  such  an  one 
the  age  has  found  in  the  author  of  'In  Memoriam.' 
The  image  of  f  Freedom  on  her  regal  seat '  has  ever 
been  one  of  the  great  sources  of  his  inspiration,  and 
since  the  days  of  Burns  we  had  no  more  passionate 
worshipper  of  the  great  goddess,  and  no  such  divine 
Promethean  scorn  of  anything  in  the  shape  of  the 
quasi-spiritual  fetter.  Like  the  friend  he  consecrates 
in  his  immortal  elegy,  'he  will  not  leave  his  judgment 
blind/  and,  speaking  of  himself,  he  tells  us  elsewhere 
how  unendurable  life  would  have  been  to  him  except 
in 

A  land  where,  girt  by  friend  or  foe, 
A  man  may  speak  the  thing  he  will ! " 

That  such  a  poem  as  "In  Memoriam"  "  should  have 
presented  difficulties  to  the  orthodox  mind  is  perhaps 
not  to  be  wondered  at,  and  cannot  be  helped.  With- 
out absolute  freedom  from  the  fetters  and  restrictions 
of  authoritative  human  codes,  poetry  of  the  highest 
kind  is  impossible/' 

Now,  surely,  if  words  of  praise  were  wanting  for 
Mr.  Tennyson,  it  was  scarcely  necessary  to  find  them 
in  so  perverse  and  ridiculous  a  statement  as  the  one 
I  have  just  quoted.  We  may  admire  the  Laureate's 
supreme  philosophic  calm,  without  crediting  him 
with  "  passionate  worship  "  of  freedom,  or  with  any 

2    A    2 


3$6  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

sort  of  "  divine  Promethean  scorn."  I  venture  to 
say  that  there  is  not,  in  the  whole  compass  of  his 
writings,  a  single  passage  with  a  more  rarefied 
ethical  atmosphere  than  the  one  we  breathe  in  the 
pages  of  the  late  Mr.  Kingsley,  or  (greatly  to  descend 
the  scale  of  comparison)  those  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Hughes.  It  is  his  characteristic, "and  it  may  possibly 
be  his  glory,  that  he  is  pre-eminently  "  an  English- 
man/' guilty  even,  once  or  twice  in  his  life,  of  actual 
Anglophobia  ;  and  I  know  of  no  single  occasion 
on  which  his  attitude  of  mind  has  been  one  solicitous 
of  martyrdom.  Only  sheer  bigots — and  these  happily 
are  now  in  a  minority — could  find  fault  with  so 
noble  a  piece  of  work  as  "  In  Memoriam."  The 
British  matron,  with  all  her  timid  young  clustering 
around  her  skirts,  can  find  no  offence  anywhere  in 
the  pages  of  one  who  utters  nothing  base;  for 
though  he  may  tell  her  in  sufficiently  strong  language 
that  she  is  too  fond  of  money,  and  that  she  buys  and 
sells  her  offspring,  he  never  on  any  occasion  touches 
roughly  on  any  of  her  institutions — say,  for  example, 
marriage,  and  the  restitution  of  conjugal  rights. 
Politically,  I  am  so  thoroughly  at  issue  with  Mr. 
Tennyson,  that  I  find  it  difficult  to  discuss  his 
political  writings  at  all,  and  to  preserve  my  reverence 
for  a  master's  name  and  fame.  Yet  on  more  than 
one  occasion,  he  has  written  in  the  purest  spirit  of 
"John  Bull/'  has  forgotten  the  divine  prerogative  of 
genius,  and  has  sounded  the  charge  for  reckless  war. 
That  wonderfully  fine  poem,  the  "  Ode  on  the  Death 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,"  contains  passages  which 
I1  can  scarcely  read  without  a  shiver,  they  are  so 
manifestly  beyond  the  mark  even  of  a  funeral  eulogy; 
and,  to  conclude  this  sort  of  fault-finding,  I  am 
quite  certain  that  it  would  have  been  better  if  the 


FROM  POPE   TO   TENNYSON.  357 

ballad  on  the  death  of  Sir  Richard  Grenvillc — in 
itself  one  of  the  finest  poems  in  the  language — had 
never  appeared,  at  the  time  it  did,  with  the  name  of 
Mr.  Tennyson. 

These  are  positive  recriminations,  and  my 
admiration  of  the  subject  is  so  great,  that  I  almost 
shrink  from  making  them.  But  really  after  all  Mr. 
Selkirk  is  to  blame,  for  Mr.  Tennyson  himself  has 
never  pretended  to  be  a  revolutionary  or  revolution- 
loving  poet ;  on  the  contrary,  he  has  held  throughout 
his  grand  career  to  the  same  fine  middle-class  ideal 
so  much  adored  by  the  late  Mr.  Kingsley.  "  Through- 
out all  our  nineteenth-century  British  literature/' 
wrote  one  whom  England  persecuted  because  he 
loved  his  country,*  "  there  runs  a  tone  of  polite, 
though  distant,  recognition  of  Almighty  God,  as 
one  of  the  Great  Powers ;  and  though  no  resident 
is  still  maintained  at  His  court,  yet  British  civilisa- 
tion gives  him  assurance  of  friendly  relations;  and 
'our  venerable  Church'  and  'beautiful  liturgy'  are 
relied  upon  as  a  sort  of  diplomatic  Concordat  or 
Pragmatic  Sanction,  whereby  we,  occupied  as  we 
are  in  grave  commercial  and  political  pursuits, 
carrying  on  our  business,  selling  our  altars,  and 
utilising  our  heathen,  bind  ourselves  to  let  Him  alone, 
if  He  lets  us  alone  ; — if  He  will  keep  looking  apart 
contemplating  the  illustrious  maremilkers  and  blame- 
less Ethiopians,  and  never  minding  us,  we  will  keep 
up  a  most  respectable  Church  for  Him,  and  make  our 
lower  orders  venerate  it  and  pay  for  it  handsomely, 
and  we  will  suffer  no  national  infidelity,  like  the 
horrid  French."  This,  of  course,  is  only  a  sarcastic 
and  almost  brutal  statement  of  the  truth.  As  it 

*  John  Mitchell. 


358  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

stands,  however,  it  is  far  nearer  to  the  facts  of  the 
Tennysonian  ethics  than  is  the  extraordinary  thesis 
of  Mr.  Selkirk.  My  issue  with  Mr.  Tennyson,  if  he 
for  a  moment  assumed  to  be  a  great  disturbing  or 
creating  force,  would  be  that  he  was  far  too  acquiescent 
and  dispassionate  a  thinker.  Being  what  he  is  and 
professes  to  be,  the  perfect  singer  of  his  time,  he  has 
a  right  to  turn  round  upon  us  with :  "  Lyric  poetry 
is  perfect  musical  speech,  and  I  simply  decline  the 
pressure  of  all  disturbing  influences.  I  am  a  musician, 
not  a  prophet ;  a  great  artist,  not  a  great  creator.  I 
embody  the  best  tendencies  of  my  time,  without 
aspiring  to  be  beyond  my  time.  It  is  no  affair  of 
mine  to  carp  at  Church  and  State,  to  reform  society, 
to  inspire  revolutions.  I  am  no  iconoclast ;  my 
mission  is  to  sing."  This  would  be,  and  is,  quite 
unanswerable.  When  the  Laureate  himself  aspires 
to  the  position  Mr.  Selkirk  claims  for  him,  that  of 
being  the  greatest  ethical  teacher  of  the  time,  it  will 
be  quite  soon  enough  to  discuss  his  claim  to  a 
position  so  close  to  moral  and  literary  martyrdom. 


A   LAST    LOOK    ROUND. 


CIRCUMSPICE! 

THE  pursuit  of  literature  has  of  late  years  become  a 
lonely  business.     Beyond  the  narrow  orbits  of  certain 
little   merry-go-rounds    of    mutual    admiration,    few- 
literary  people   are  to  be  found  who   follow  bright 
ideals  in  company,  or  exhibit  much  affection  for  one 
another.   The  great  newspapers,  with  their  monstrous 
machinery,  swallow  up  our  young  men  of  talent  by 
the  dozen.    If  here  and  there  a  tricksy  spirit  escapes, 
it  is  to  degenerate   into  a  fashionable  author  or  a 
fourth-rate  politician.     If  by  any  chance  a  solitary 
writer  attempts  to  be  original  and  to  think  for  himself, 
he  reaps  the  privileges  of  literary  martyrdom.    Mean- 
time, if  we  look  quietly  round  in  the  world  of  life  and 
literature,  what  do  we  see  ?      The  great  waters  of 
Democracy  arising  to  swallow  up  and  cover  the  last 
landmarks  of  individualism  ;    a  few  isolated  figures 
standing   on  ever-narrowing   islets,  and  crying  like 
Canute  to  the  flood  ;  bogus  reputations  going  down 
into    the    angry    living     tide,    volcanic     notorieties 
springing  up  for  a  moment  and  disappearing,  like 
certain  earth-eruptions   in   the   Mediterranean ;   the 
Ark    of    the    Church,    with    a    nasty    hole    in    its 
sides,  drifting  hither  and  thither  before  the  storm, 
with   two  archbishops,  a  Catholic  and  a  Protestant, 


360  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

lashed  to  the  rudder ;  minor  prophets,  in  cockle- 
shells of  Goethe's  building,  rowing  leisurely  out  to 
the  Ark's  assistance,  leaping  jauntily  on  the  deck, 
and  offering  to  pilot  the  vessel  into  harbours  of 
culture  and  light;  and  far  away  on  the  Mount 
Ararat  of  Science,  the  sun  of  some  new  creed 
dimly  shining.  Meantime,  there  is  religious  and 
social  chaos,  marked  by  a  great  confusion  of 
tongues.  Men  no  longer  know  what  to  believe 
or  whom  to  believe.  Literature  is  more  like  a 
blasted  fig-tree  than  a  healthy  blooming  English 
oak.  Criticism  flourishes  on  the  grave  of  imagination. 
Encyclopaedias,  discursions,  cheap  manuals  for  the 
uninstructed,  infantile  manuals  for  lazy  adults,  take 
the  place  of  living  books.  No  sooner  does  one  editor 
issue  a  series  of  ancient  classics  for  English  readers, 
than  another  editor  cuts  in  with  a  series  of  manuals 
to  our  own  classics,  which  are  accessible  to  everybody 
in  mother-English.  The  era  of  completed  literary 
sinfulness  is  reached  when  people  discuss  seriously  an 
article  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  get  up  the  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress"  out  of  a  manual,  and  need  cicerones  to 
expound  to  them  the  beauties  of  our  popular  poets. 
Fiction  flourishes  like  a  noxious  growth.  Meantime, 
where  are  we,  and  whither  are  we  drifting?  After 
the  School  Board  has  come  the  Deluge.  Let  me  take 
a  last  look  round,  and  see  the  forces  which  are 
conditioning  literature  just  at  present. 

At  the  very  outset  of  my  inquiry,  two  forces  intrude 
themselves  upon  me.  I  will  take  them  in  their  natural 
sequence. 


A  LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  361 


II. 
FIRST,    HEAR   THE   CARDINAL! 

"LIBERALISM  in  religion  is  the  doctrine  that  there 
is  no  positive  truth  in  religion,  but  that  one  creed  is 
as  good  as  another.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the 
recognition  of  any  religion  as  true.  It  teaches  that 
all  are  to  be  tolerated,  as  all  are  matters  of  opinion. 
Revealed  religion  is  not  a  truth,  but  a  sentiment  and 
a  taste — not  an  objective  fact,  not  miraculous  ;  and 
it  is  the  right  of  each  individual  to  make  it  say  just 
what  strikes  his  fancy/'  These  words,  as  many  of 
my  readers  are  aware,  form  part  of  the  speech 
delivered  by  Dr.  Newman  at  Rome,  when  he  received 
the  Pope's  official  message  that  he  had  been  created 
a  Cardinal.  They  are  very  sad  words,  as  embodying 
the  speaker's  last  farewell  of  free  thought  and  free 
progress,  and  they  have  been  received  with  a  certain 
measure  of  respect,  due  to  one  of  exceptional  talents, 
and  undoubted  goodness  of  heart.  But  falser  and 
more  mischievous  words  were  never  spoken.  True 
Liberalism  in  religion  does  not  deny  the  positive 
truth  of  religion,  but  insists  rather  upon  its  relativity  ; 
so  far  from  holding  one  creed  as  good  as  another, 
it  insists  that  every  man's  creed  is  a  law  unto  himself, 
to  be  broken  at  each  man's  spiritual  peril;  and 
because  it  reverences  religion  and  its  place  in  the 
human  conscience,  it  preaches  toleration  in  the 
widest  sense  to  every  creed  under  the  sun.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  Dr.  Newman  shows  a  radical  mis- 
conception of  what  Liberalism  is  and  implies,  for  to 
him  it  is  something  abnormal  and  anarchical,  instead 
of  being  totally  simple  and  coherent.  True,  it  is 
based  on  the  assumption  that  in  all  matters  of  faith 


362  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  individual  conscience  forms  the  last  appeal ;  and 
hence,  though  it  long  ago  pronounced  its  final 
opinion  on  the  inspirations  of  the  Vatican  and  the 
spirit  of  the  Inquisition,  it  has  enabled  Dr.  Newman 
to  live  his  life  in  peace,  and  has  provided  for  him  at 
every  stage  of  his  career  the  cloistered  shelter  of 
popular  esteem.  Thanks  to  true  Liberalism  in 
religion,  indeed,  the  author  of  the  "Apologia"  has 
prayed,  worked,  and  spiritually  thriven  in  a  land 
which  has  formally  renounced  the  thrall  and,  to  some 
extent,  the  creed  of  Rome ;  every  utterance  of  his 
has  been  circulated  by  the  press,  and  commented  upon 
in  a  kindly  and  a  friendly  spirit ;  his  character  has 
always  been  held  venerable,  and  even  his  delusions 
have  invariably  been  treated  as  sacred.  And  after 
all  this,  after  years  of  solemn  experience  and  mellow- 
ing wisdom,  Dr.  Newman,  standing  in  the  shadow  of 
the  Vatican,  points  his  finger  at  his  benefactors,  and 
almost  with  his  last  breath  abjures  Liberty,  and 
proclaims  the  gospel  of  intolerance,  of  torture,  and  of 
retrogression.  The  spectacle,  to  my  mind,  is  a 
melancholy  one.  Not  only  does  the  old  reason  seem 
to  have  lost  its  cunning,  but  the  gentle  judgment 
appears  to  have  become  twisted  and  perverted.  Such 
a  definition  of  Liberalism  as  I  have  quoted  is  cer- 
tainly unworthy  of  a  divine  trained  among  the  free 
institutions  of  England.  Accept  that  definition, 
popularise  and  legalise  it,  and  we  should  speedily 
possess,  instead  of  a  free  Church  in  a  free  State,  not 
one  Inquisition,  but  a  dozen.  Instead  of  "sentiment 
and  taste,"  to  which  Dr.  Newman  has  a  charac- 
teristic objection,  we  should  have  "objective  fact" 
— Catholic,  Protestant,  Positivist,  and  Materialistic. 
Dr.  Manning  would  preside  over  one  sort  of  Star 
Chamber,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  over  another, 


A   LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  363 

Mr.  Frederick  Harrison  over  a  third,  and  Professor 
Huxley  over  a  fourth.  The  end  might,  perhaps, 
justify  the  means  ;  but  apostasy  would  then  become 
a  serious  business,  and  quiet  thinkers  would  no  longer 
be  left  alone,  even  at  Birmingham. 

Of  course  what  Dr.  Newman  means  is  simple 
enough.  He  has  passed  over  into  a  Church  which 
professes  to  hold  the  monopoly  of  objective  and 
spiritual  truth,  and  which  has  been  historically 
distinguished  for  carrying  the  doctrine  of  protection 
even  into  the  other  world.  He  wishes  to  say,  and 
in  effect  he  says,  as  his  Church  has  always  said,  that 
religion  is  to  come  from  above,  not  from  within,  and 
that  no  man  can  be  a  Christian  who  denies  the 
miraculous  Virgin.  The  logical  outcome  of  all  this 
is  inquisitorial.  The  creed  of  Rome  is  true,  not 
merely  relatively,  but  absolutely.  Nay,  the  good 
Cardinal  goes  farther.  "  For  thirty,  forty,  fifty  years 
I  have  resisted  to  the  best  of  my  powers  the  spirit  of 
Liberalism  in  religion."  Yet  for  thirty,  forty,  fifty  years 
Dr.  Newman  has  been  living  under  the  beneficent 
protection  of  the  Liberalism  he  has  resisted.  During 
all  those  years  his  protectress  has  never  troubled 
him  with  questions  concerning  the  material  facts  of 
his  belief,  but  has  left  those  facts  to  his  own  soul, 
which  alone  can  apprehend  them.  He  has  seen  every- 
where around  him  the  spectacle  of  a  free  people, 
eager  to  open  all  avenues  of  progress  and  of  honour 
to  all  creeds,  regardless  of  religious  difference  and 
tolerant  to  all  opinion.  How,  and  to  what  extent, 
has  Dr.  Newman  resisted  this  Liberalism?  Only, 
so  far  as  I  know,  by  expounding  with  strange 
clearness  and  beauty  the  meaning  of  his  own  faith, 
and  by  casting  into  the  side  of  Rome  all  the  weight 
of  his  private  worth  and  intellectual  ability.  Such 


364  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

resistance,  a  Liberal  would  say,  is  holy  and  justifiable  ; 
that  is  to  say,  honest  propagandist!!  is  justifiable. 
Our  knowledge  of  Dr.  Newman's  life  is  limited  to 
facts  which  he  himself  has  made  public.  Well,  there 
is  nothing  in  these  facts  to  warrant  the  assumption 
that  he  ever  really  resisted  Liberalism ;  on  the 
contrary,  there  is  much  to  prove  that  he,  more  than 
most  men,  respected  the  sanctity  of  private  judgment, 
enjoyed  the  moral  atmosphere  of  Liberal  institutions, 
and  cherished  the  privilege  of  passing  pensively  from 
one  state  of  edification  to  another  under  the  safe 
protection  of  a  free  and  Christian  land. 

My  readers  must  perfectly  understand  that  I 
pronounce  no  opinion  on  the  creed  which  Dr. 
Newman  holds  and  has  held  so  long,  or  that  faith 
which  is  built  on  miracles  and  has  itself  been  most 
miraculously  unsuccessful  in  its  application  to  human 
needs.  My  business  is  not  to  discuss  dogma  on  one 
side  or  another,  but  to  protest  against  a  definition 
•of  Liberalism  in  religion  which  would  ultimately 
make  all  private  judgment  impossible,  and  render 
religion  itself,  in  time,  a  mere  affair  of  government 
from  above.  Dr.  Newman's  speech  would  be  equally 
false  and  offensive  if  it  came  from  the  mouth  of  one 
professing  any  other  form  of  creed.  Suppose,  for 
example,  that  Professor  Haeckel,  of  Jena,  were  to 
say,  in  as  many  words,  "  Liberalism  in  science  is  the 
doctrine  that  there  is  no  positive  truth  in  science,  but 
that  one  belief  is  as  good  as  another.  It  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  recognition  of  any  science  as  true." 
How  Dr.  Newman  and  all  Churchmen  would  open 
their  eyes  at  such  a  definition.  Yet  the  cases  are 
identical.  Positive  or  absolute  truth  is  one  thing, 
its  recognition  by  the  human  intellect  is  quite  an- 
other. Unfortunately  for  Dr.  Newman,  the  world  is 


A   LAST  LOOK'  ROUAT. 

not  so  certain  about  the  truth  as  it  used  to  be  ;  it  lias 
been  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  absolute  truth 
is  inconceivable,  and  that  there  a  great  many  ways 
of  looking  at  even  one  order  of  facts  or  miracles. 
So  Liberalism  says,  "  In  God's  name  let  all  the  creeds 
of  God  flourish,  so  long  as  they  do  not  interfere  with 
the  due  workings  of  the  State  ;  let  Dr.  Newman  go 
to  Rome  if  he  pleases,  and  long  may  he  wear  his 
biretta ;  only  he  must  let  other  men  have  their  wax- 
too,  and  leave  a  little  scope  for  taste  and  judgment, 
even  in  matters  of  opinion  !  "  And  Liberalism,  true 
Liberalism,  may  add,  with  a  sigh,  "  Since  I  did  allow 
my  good  son,  Newman,  to  go  to  Rome,  and  put  no 
hindrance  in  his  way,  he  might  have  remembered 
his  first  obligations  to  me  and  mine.  He  should 
not  have  abandoned  me  altogether,  even  to  become 
a  Cardinal." 


III. 
THE   ATTITUDE   OF   SCIENCE. 

I  AM  no  blind  admirer  of  the  Professor  who  is  just  at 
present  sending  forth  his  saucy  scientific  prophecies 
from  the  University  of  Jena — indeed,  there  are  many 
points,  especially  those  affecting  the  psychological 
conditions  of  mankind,  on  which  I  am  ready  to  join 
issue  with  him.  In  reading  his  two  principal  w. 
the  "History  of  Creation"  and  the  "History  of 
Evolution,"  it  is  impossible  to  tell  where  certainty 
ends  and  wild  poetical  hypothesis  begins,  and  equally 
useless  to  speculate  to  what  heights  of  dariiu; 
sumption  the  author  may  be  led  at  any  moment 
by  his  passion  for  logical  symmetry  and  his  fervour 


366  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

for  the  fancies  of  his  creed.     At  the  same  time  his 
power  is  great  and  his  courage  indisputable,  while, 
concerning  his  mechanical   conceptions  of  creation, 
this,  at  least,  can  be  said — that  they  are  a  good  deal 
nearer  to  the  truth  than  the  old  dreams  of  theologians 
or  the  last  romances  of  super-pious  naturalists  edu- 
cated in  the  school  of  Cuvier.    Fascinated,  bewildered 
even,  by  the  mighty  hypothesis  of  Darwin,  Professor 
Haeckel  has   pushed   that  hypothesis  to  its  utmost 
limits.    He  has  drawn  up  plans  of  natural  progression 
which   revolutionise   all    orthodox    ideas  ;    wherever 
links    were    wanting    he    has    supplied   them,   with 
wonderful   visions    of    the    plastidule   soul   and   the 
potentialities  of  carbon  ;  and  the  result  is  a  chart  of 
Man's  place  in  Nature  which  maybe  mistaken, which 
is  certainly  highly  conjectural,  but   which,  however 
false   in   detail,    is    in    every   way   fascinating   as   a 
generalisation.     As  might  have  been  expected,  how- 
ever, Haeckel's  calm  apotheosis  of  Darwinism  has 
not  been  witnessed  without  protest,  even  from  natural 
philosophers  ;    and   every  one  remembers  with  what 
warmth  the  orthodox  party  exulted,  when  Professor 
Virchow  delivered  his  address  on  the  "  Freedom  of 
Science   in   the   Modern    State/'   and    held    up    to 
•especial    ridicule    the   evolutionary   explanations    of 
Haeckel.     The  name  of  Virchow,  of  course,  carried 
extraordinary  weight.     "  A  Daniel,  a  Daniel,  come 
to  judgment!"  cried  the  Churches  and  the  journals  ; 
and  the  old  Professor's  words  were  flashed   by  the 
party  of  reaction  all  over  the  civilised  world.     The 
reductio  ad  absurdum  came  when  the  Prussian  Kreuz- 
Zeitung  bracketed    Darwinism    and    Democracy  to- 
gether, and  made  the  theory  of  descent  responsible 
for  the  wicked  attempts  of  Hodel  and  Nobiling ! 
The   issue   between    the   two    Professors  is  very 


A   LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  367 

simple,  and  may  be  briefly  explained.  Virchow 
condemns  the  precipitation  of  Haeckel,  accuses  him 
of  assuming  as  certain  what  is  not  verifiable,  and 
insists  that  public  teaching  should  be  limited  to  the 
statement  and  illustration  of  facts  which  are  actually 
conquered  and  firmly  established.  Haeckel,  on  the 
other  hand,  censures  the  retrogression  of  Virchow, 
avers  that  all  human  knowledge  is  subjective,  and 
shows — I  think  with  considerable  success — that  the 
mission  of  science  embraces  illimitable  conjecture. 
Even  those  "  axioms,"  which  are  the  basis  of  the 
teaching  of  mathematics,  are  incapable  of  absolute 
proof.  Conjectural  in  every  way  is  all  we  know  of 
Matter,  or  Force ;  and  even  gravitation  is  hypo- 
thetical. The  undulatory  theory  of  Light,  which 
we  accept  now  as  the  indispensable  basis  of  optics, 
rests  on  an  unproved  hypothesis,  on  the  subjective 
assumption  of  an  ethereal  medium,  whose  existence 
no  one  is  in  a  position  to  prove  in  any  way.  Again, 
the  whole  theoretical  side  of  Chemistry  is  an  airy 
structure  of  hypotheses,  the  common  basis  of  chemical 
theories — viz.,  the  atomic  theory — being  perfectly 
unprovable,  since  no  chemist  has  ever  seen  an  atom. 
In  all  this,  perhaps,  Professor  Haeckel  is  perhaps  a 
little  ingenuous.  He  knows  as  well  as  any  one  that 
he  is  not  fairly  crossing  swords  with  Virchow,  but 
enveloping  him  in  a  cloud  of  verbal  dust.  The  real 
matter  at  issue  is  not  what  every  modern  philosopher 
has  already  answered  affirmatively  to  the  public 
satisfaction,  i.e.,  whether  hypothesis  is  admissible  in 
science  ;  but  whether  evolutionists,  in  using  hypo- 
thesis wholesale  and  without  due  caution,  and  in 
mingling  together  material  facts  and  subjective 
dreams,  are  not  misleading  both  themselves  and  the 
public.  Haeckel,  for  example,  is  a  materialist  pure 


368  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

and  simple.  Not  content  with  leaving  the  evolution- 
hypothesis  to  illustrate  itself  and  to  point  its  own 
moral,  he  uses  it  as  heavy  artillery  against  the  Cloud- 
Cuckoo-Town  of  popular  Deism.  He  is  eager  at 
every  step  to  show  that  Matter  is  everything,  that 
Deity  is  impossible.  He  is  never  tired  of  ridiculing 
the  religion  which  attributes,  as  he  expresses  it,  "  a 
dualistic  existence  to  the  psyche,"  his  own  certainty 
being  that  Matter  and  Spirit  are  identical ;  and  he 
reminds  his  opponent  that  he  too  at  one  time  expressed 
the  same  materialistic  views.  "  He  (Virchow)  formerly 
supported  with  a  clear  conscience  and  with  his  utmost 
energy,  in  psychology  as  in  the  other  collected  de- 
partments of  physiology  (sic),  that  very  mechanical 
standpoint  which  we  to-day  accept  as  the  essential 
base  of  our  monism,  and  which  stands  in  irreconcilable 
antagonism  to  the  dualism  of  the  vitalistic  doctrine.  .  . , 
He  led  me  to  the  clear  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
the  nature  of  man,  like  every  other  organism,  can  only 
be  rightly  understood  as  an  united  whole,  that  this 
spiritual  and  corporeal  being  are  inseparable,  and 
that  the  phenomena  of  the  soul-life  depend,  like  all 
other  vital  phenomena,  on  material  motion  only — on 
mechanical  (or physico-chemical)  modifications  of  cells'' 
The  italics  are  mine,  not  Haeckel's.  It  seems  to 
me  that  such  language  fully  justifies  Virchow's  ad- 
juration of  "  Restringamur."  Haeckel  not  only 
exaggerates  the  monistic  ideas  formerly  held  by 
Virchow,  but  here,  as  elsewhere,  he  almost  exagge- 
rates his  own  conception  of  the  theory.  To  assert  that 
psychical  or  spiritual  life  is  primarily  or  ultimately  a 
material  motion  only,  a  mechanical  modification  of 
cells,  is  to  use  the  language  of  wild  hyperbole.  It 
may  or  may  not  be  true  that  such  is  the  case,  just  as 
it  may  or  may  not  be  true  that  the  moon  is  made  of 


A  LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  369 

green  cheese,  but  there  is  not  the  slightest  evidence 
to  justify  the  hypothesis.  And  the  hypothesis  itself 
is  so  charmingly  easy  and  ofif-hand  !  What  has 
puzzled  philosophy  since  man  began  to  think,  what 
has  eluded  every  kind  of  inquiry  and  research,  all 
that  wondrously  complicated  phenomenon  which  to 
this  hour  is  the  despair  of  physiology  and  the 
drunkenness  of  metaphysics,  is  only — mark  the 
"  only  " — a  mechanical  modification  of  "  cells."  Why, 
this  is  no  more  than  to  say  that  to  think  is — to  use 
the  brain,  and  that  the  basis  of  life  is  physiological. 
Thought  may  be  a  mode  of  motion,  as  heat  is,  as 
electricity  is  supposed  to  be ;  but  what  then  ?  Does 
that  bring  us  an  inch  nearer  to  the  central  mystery, 
how  cellular  change,  when  such  takes  place,  can 
possibly  evolve  psychic  force  ?  Haeckel's  explanation, 
in  fact,  is  no  explanation  whatever.  It  is  a  mere 
vision  of  a  mysterious  mechanism  which  no  man 
has  yet  been  able  to  explain.  And  when  the 
Professor  goes  further  and  asserts  that  the  me- 
chanical nature  of  Matter  and  Spirit  negates  the 
idea  of  God,  I  cry  again,  with  Virchow,  "  Restringa- 
mur  !  "  How  does  the  identity  of  Matter  and  Spirit 
affect  the  idea  of  God  one  way  or  another  ?  Because 
we  know  how  a  monkey  wags  its  tail,  or  how  the 
mind  of  man  receives  its  impressions  and  redelivers 
them,  have  we  solved  the  riddle  of  the  Universe? 
Quite  the  contrary,  says  Virchow ;  so  do  not  let  us 
be  vainglorious.  Here,  certainly,  Virchow  is  right. 

But  where  Haeckel  has  his  opponent  on  the  hip 
is  in  his  repudiation  of  the  politico-theological  as- 
sertion that  the  doctrine  of  descent  leads  to  social 
anarchy,  and  supports  the  "  Socialist  theory." 
"  What  in  the  world,"  Haeckel  naturally  asks,  "  has 
the  doctrine  of  descent  to  do  with  Socialism  ?  "  He 

2  n 


370  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

proceeds  to  demonstrate,  however,  that  Darwinism, 
at  least,  is  the  reverse  of  democratic,  since  it  teaches 
the  cheerful  creed  that  "  in  human  life,  as  in  animal 
and  plant  life  everywhere,  and  at  all  times,  only  a 
small  and  chosen  minority  can  exist  and  flourish, 
while  the  enormous  majority  starve  and  perish 
miserably,  and  more  or  less  prematurely."  I  cordially 
agree  with  him  in  his  protest  against  Virchow's 
attempt  to  darken  the  discussion  by  awakening  a 
political  bias.  I  agree  with  him,  moreover,  whenever 
he  takes  his  stand  on  the  right  of  private  judgment, 
and  on  the  freedom  of  the  truth.  Yet  this  tract— 
with  all  its  justice  of  polemics  in  certain  particulars 
— forces  upon  us  more  than  ever  the  fact  that 
Virchow's  protest  was  well-timed,  and  that  pure 
scientists  should  clip  their  wings  and  lessen  their 
fanciful  flights,  in  which  they  try  to  rival  theologians. 
Haeckel  is  a  clever  man  haunted  by  one  great  truth, 
which  casts  a  thousand  delusive  shadows.  He  seems 
utterly  incompetent  to  give  a  philosophical  opinion 
on  the  higher  issues  of  the  great  religious  controversy 
which  his  charts  of  facts  and  fancies  illustrate  so 
amusingly  and  so  well  ;  and  he  will  leave  the  world 
where  Aristotle  found  it,  darkened  by  the  shadow  of 
its  own  doubt,  and  face  to  face  with  the  everlasting 
Sphynx. 


IV. 

MINOR  RESULTS  AND  INFLUENCES. 

THESE  are  the  two  great  forces  which  stand  opposed 
to  each  other — authority  and  superstition,  as  personi- 
fied in  such  men  as  Cardinal  Newman ;  extreme 
scientific  Radicalism,  as  personified  in  such  men  as 


A   LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  371 

Professor  Haeckcl.  The  first  still  persists,  to  the 
great  joy  of  many  thousands  of  people,  in  affirming 
that  two  and  two  make  five  ;  the  second,  elated  with 
the  discovery  that  two  and  two  make  four,  encroaches 
so  far  as  to  deny  the  existence  of  any  unknown 
quantity.  Midway  between  the  two  forces,  and  full 
of  a  prescience  and  a  sanity  unique  in  this  generation, 
stands  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  uttering  supreme  words 
of  wisdom  and  of  warning,  but  sadly  disappointing 
those  who  crave  for  some  creed  of  absolute  certainty. 
While  all  other  teachers  of  the  age  may  easily  be 
classed,  while  Mr.  Mill,  for  example,  may  safely  be 
relegated  to  the  army  of  the  intellectual  revolt,  while 
Messrs.  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  despite  all  their 
divergencies,  may  as  certainly  be  claimed  by  the 
leaders  of  the  army  of  authority,  Mr.  Spencer  alone 
confronts  the  problem  of  the  universe,  and  while 
indefinitely  enlarging  the  area  of  human  knowledge, 
frankly  postulates  the  Unknowable.  His  width  of 
view,  his  catholicity  of  sympathy,  his  fearlessness  in 
investigation,  his  faculty  of  crystalline  exposition, 
appear  to  me  almost  superhuman.  One  sweep  of  his 
majestic  vision  has  unveiled  the  whole  mystery  of 
human  responsibility,  one  touch  of  his  little  finger 
has  annihilated  dozens  of  dilettante  prophets — e.g. 
Mr.  Matthew  Arnold.  Yet  for  all  this  he  is  solitary 
and  scarcely  happy,  since,  unlike  the  Cardinal,  and 
unlike  the  Professor,  he  stops  short  at  verification. 
His  supreme  proof  is  a  supreme  disappointment. 
His  last  word  is,  "  Wait !  "  Fortunately,  he  closes  no 
one  gate  of  the  universe,  but  leaves  all  wide  open, 
while  we  stand  awestricken  at  the  dazzling  vistas 
which  open  out  beyond  them  all. 

Below  the  sphere  occupied  by  these  greater  t 
quietly  conditioning  literature,  work  those  innumerable 

2    B    2 


372  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

minorinfluences  to  which  we  give,  collectively,  the  name 
of  criticism.  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  Mr.  Mallock,  Mr. 
John  Morley,  Mr.  Huxley,  Mr.  Tyndall,  Mr.  Frederick 
Harrison,  Miss  Frances  Cobbe,  Mr.  Picton,  Mr.  Greg, 
and  many  others,  devote  their  powers,  each  in  his 
or  her  own  way,  to  the  criticism  of  the  "  situation." 
From  every  great  review,  from  every  journal  or  news- 
paper, their  voices  are  sounding.  According  to  Mr. 
Arnold,  here  as  elsewhere  echoing  Goethe,  literature 
is  merely  a  criticism  of  life.  According  to  Mr. 
Mallock,  literature  is  a  criticism  of  religion,  and  the 
highest  truth  rests  where  it  began,  at  the  Empire 
Roman  city.  According  to  Mr.  Morley,  the  criterion 
of  progress  is  still  to  be  found  in  the  French  encyclo- 
paedia. According  to  Messrs.  Huxley  and  Tyndall, 
science  now  and  for  ever  dispossesses  imagination 
as  well  as  religion.  According  to  Mr.  Harrison, 
there  is  no  god  but  the  Grand  £tre,  and  Comte  is 
his  prophet.  And  so  on,  through  all  the  long 
catalogue  of  popular  essayists.  The  whole  matter, 
so  far  as  it  affects  the  literary  calling,  resolves  itself 
into  this.  The  imaginative  creator  must  now,  to  use 
an  American  vulgarism,  take  a  back  seat,  while 
criticism,  with  stern  and  pertinacious  countenance, 
faces  the  religio-scientific  sphynx.  The  world  is 
tired  of  imagination ;  it  solicits  exposition,  verifi- 
cation. All  imaginative  revolt  is  simple  Philistinism. 
The  Philistine  novelist,  the  Philistine  philosopher, 
the  Philistine  poet,  and  the  Philistine  journalist  are 
told  that  their  occupation  is  gone  for  ever. 

The  Philistine  novelist  is  Victor  Hugo.  The  anti- 
dote to  his  influence  is  the  critical  novelist-essayist 
loved  by  the  critical  journalist,  Thackeray.  Thackeray 
looked  at  life  from  the  windows  of  the  clubs,  made 
silly  Laura  Pendennis  the  ideal  of  English  woman- 


A  LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  373 

hood,  fought  and  wrought  with  criticism  on  his  side 
till  he  based  a  splendid  reputation  on  the  theory  of 
suckling  fools  and  chronicling  small  beer.  Thackeray 
was  to  literature  what  Major  Pendennis  was  to  society 
— a  delightful  Jldneur,  a  charming  exponent  of  the 
philosophy  of  laissez  faire.  Thackeray  "  trusted  to 
Heaven  (e.g.)  that  German  art  and  religion  would 
take  no  hold  in  our  country,  where  there  is  a  fund 
of  roast  beef  that  will  expel  any  such  humbug  in  the 
end."  Thackeray  protested,  apropos  of  George  Sand, 
against  "  women  who  step  down  to  the  people  with 
stately  step  and  voice  of  authority,  and  deliver  their 
twopenny  tablets,  as  if  there  were  some  Divine 
authority  for  the  wretched  nonsense  written  there." 
Thackeray,  in  his  hatred  of  all  imaginative  revolt, 
belonged  to  the  party  of  the  Cardinal. 

The  Philistine  poet  is  Walt  Whitman.  Against 
his  influence,  such  as  it  is,  may  be  set  the  influence 
of  the  critical  poet  loved  by  the  critical  journalist ;  for 
example,  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold. 

There  must  be  a  certain  charm  in  the  didactic 
verse  of  this  writer,  for  it  has  been  liberally  praised 
and  widely  read.  I  have,  nevertheless,  to  record  my 
impression  that  Mr.  Arnold  is  not,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word,  a  poet  at  all,  and  that,  even  where  the 
form  of  his  thought  appears  poetical,  its  primary 
inspiration  is  crudely  intellectual.  In  saying  so  much 
1  do  not  deny  that  this  writer  has  written  charm- 
ing verses,  and  has  attained  poetical  credentials ; 
all  I  mean  to  convey  is  that  he  is  not  an  inspired 
writer,  in  the  sense  that  certain  of  his  contemporaries 
are  inspired  writers,  as  Mr.  Swinburne  for  example 
is  inspired,  and  that  his  verses  lie  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  border-line  which  separates  true  poetry 
from  eloquent  prose.  As  a  prose  writer,  whether 


374  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

he  is  writing  verse  or  not,  he  is  invariably  self- 
collected,  sagacious,  and  sane,  but  he  is  at  all  times 
a  prose  writer,  never  a  poet,  either  "  born "  or 
"  made."  For  the  besetting  sin  of  his  style  I  should 
say  that  his  master,  Goethe,  was  responsible.  That 
sin  is  didacticism.  Where  he  reaches  the  highest 
level  of  his  attainment,  as  in  the  verses  to  Obermann, 
he  is  didactic  in  the  best  mood  of  our  contemplative 
essayists ;  where  he  sinks  to  his  lowest  level,  he  is 
didactic  in  the  manner  of  a  leader  writer  in  the  Daily 
News  ;  but  in  either  case  his  object  is  not  poetry  but 
criticism.  He  offers  to  our  eyes  that  strangest  of 
all  spectacles,  an  inquirer  who  keeps  his  temper,  who 
never  gets  angry,  but  who  is  calmly  and  insinuatingly 
irritating  in  all  his  moods.  After  a  careful  study  of 
his  verses,  I  can  quite  understand  how  he  came 
to  utter  the  dictum  that  Shelley's  prose  would  be 
remembered  when  all  Shelley's  verses  were  forgotten. 
A  writer  who  finds  nothing  better  in  verse  to  say  of 
Heine  than  that  the  world  smiled,  and  "  that  smile 
was  Heine"  was  never  born  among  the  laurel-bushes 
of  Parnassus. 

The  Philistine  philosopher,  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses, is  Thoreau.  People  who  pass  him  by  with 
indifference  turn  with  rapture  to  Mr.  Mallock  or 
Mr.  Percy  Greg. 

V. 
THE   NEW   GIRONDE. 

MEANTIME,  in  the  dearth  or  the  neglect  of  literary 
individualism,  we  have  witnessed  for  a  short  season 
the  apotheosis  of  the  dilettante. 

The  writers  and  critics  to  whom  I  am  about  to 
allude  may  be  called  the  Girondists  of  contemporary 


A  LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  375 

literature.  Being  called  to  power  some  few  years  ago> 
at  a  period  of  literary  depression,  they  have  had  their 
opportunity — and  lost  it ;  because,  like  their  namesakes, 
they  have  had  nothing  to  offer  mankind  but  a  dainty 
scepticism,  an  enervating  aestheticism,  an  elegant 
theory  of  Art  pour  Artt  founded  on  a  foolish 
indifference  to  the  great  facts  of  religion  and  life. 
Their  overthrow  was  certain  from  the  first.  Totem- 
worshippers,  they  carved  their  own  images  on  pieces 
of  wood,  and  when  the  hour  of  trial  came,  they  were 
found  without  a  living  faith.  They  are  liberals,  I 
know,  but  that  is  all ;  their  liberalism  is  not  vital. 
In  the  meantime,  that  other  liberal  party  in  literature, 
which  may  be  compared  to  the  Jacobins,  have  under- 
gone no  little  persecution.  Combining  with  their 
advanced  religious  views  and  scientific  sympathies  a 
vital  belief  in  God,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  supreme 
Moral  Power  which  guides  the  universe,  they  have 
been  branded  as  sentimental  and  transcendental  ; 
nor  could  they  hope  for  any  assistance  from  the 
exponents  of  popular  creeds,  seeing  that  like  their 
great  prototype,  Rousseau,  they  reject  all  dogmatic 
solutions  of  the  dark  problem  of  life.  But  should 
they  ever  be  called  upon  to  govern,  as  is  not 
impossible,  it  will  perhaps  be  found  that  their  faith  is 
not  dead  but  living,  that  they  understand  mankind, 
and  that  their  programme  includes  a  method  by 
which  Religion,  Science,  and  Art  may  be  reconciled. 

It  is  a  favourite  assertion  of  the  gifted  leaders  of 
the  English  Gironde  that  Art  itself  is  all-sufficing 
and  that  literature,  to  be  acceptable  to  the  dilettante, 
must  be  destitute  of  any  kind  of  edification.  For  the 
artist,  no  theory  of  life  is  necessary,  no  philosophy, 
no  moral  aspirations,  no  religion  ;  his  nature  may 
exhaust  itself  in  triumphs  of  mere  reproduction,  with 


376  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

the  most  satisfactory  literary  results ;  his  world  may 
be  Bedford  Park,  his  culture  need  not  extend  beyond 
the  literature  of  poetic  terms,  his  outlook  on  life  may 
be,  and  indeed  had  better  be,  confined  to  the  tea- 
roses  in  his  own  back  garden.  Unfortunately,  just  at 
the  present  moment,  something  more  is  wanted  in 
literature  than  this  kind  of  teaching.  Poetry  founded 
on  elegant  indifference  to  the  great  problems  of  life 
may  be  very  well  suited  for  schoolboys  and  their 
tutors,  but  it  is  of  little  or  no  value  in  times  of  great 
revolution,  such  as  that  through  which  we  are  now 
passing.  My  friends  of  the  Gironde  have  reigned 
for  a  few  days,  and  fallen  under  the  derision  of  the 
very  citizens  who  were  at  first  eager  for  them  to 
govern.  Nor  have  they  fallen  merely  through  negative 
incapacity  to  grapple  with  the  difficulties  of  the 
situation ;  they  have  committed  positive  sins  against 
literature  and  against  society.  The  predominant 
vices  of  the  age  are  its  lust  for  worldly  success,  its 
love  of  mere  amusement,  its  indifference  to  moral 
sanctions,  its  mindless  pietism  on  the  one  hand  and 
its  dapper  scepticism  on  the  other,  its  irreverence,  its 
contempt  for  emotion ;  in  one  word,  its  materialism. 
All  these  vices  have  been  approved,  tacitly  or  openly, 
by  the  party  to  which  we  Jacobins  of  the  new 
Republic  are  in  opposition.  Members  of  this  party 
have  long  contended  that  this  world  is  all-sufficing, 
that  mere  pleasure  is  the  end  of  Art,  that  morality  is 
a  mere  matter  of  opinion,  that  orthodox  religion  is  im- 
becile and  scientific  religion  irrelevant,  that  sentiment 
is  preposterous,  that  the  true  basis  of  belief  is,  in  the 
worst  sense,  materialistic.  Life  is  an  "  empty  day," 
and  that  is  all.  Well,  our  friends  have  been  heard, 
have  been  honoured,  have  said  their  say,  have  reigned, 
have  fallen.  They  still  command  several  of  the 


A   LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  377 

bastions  of  criticism,  but  every  day  their  fire  grows 
weaker  and  more  straggling,  and  soon,  I  have  no 
doubt,  it  will  be  silenced  for  ever.  The  strife 
between  them  and  the  party  at  present  called 
Philistine  is  the  everlasting  strife  between  moral 
enthusiasm  and  artistic  indifferentism,  between 
spiritualism  and  materialism,  between  Art  for 
Religion's  sake  and  Art  for  its  own  sake,  between 
idealism  and  realism — in  a  word,  between  Jacobinism 
and  the  Gironde. 


VI. 
THE  OUTCOME   IN   SOCIETY. 

WHILE  religion  is  waning,  while  literature  is  failing, 
while  the  dilettante  still  survives  in  the  shadow  of 
the  busy  man  of  science,  how  is  Society  progressing  ? 
According  to  the  evidence  of  many  who  speak  with 
authority,  very  badly. 

There  is  no  smoke  without  fire;  and  although 
modern  society  may  not  be  quite  as  bad  as  its  own 
scribes  represent  it  to  be,  although  virtue  may  still 
be  a  moral  factor  even  in  fashionable  circles,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  progress  for  the  last  decade 
has  been  a  progress  downward.  In  politics,  in  social 
affairs,  in  literature,  art,  and  the  drama,  as  well  as  in 
the  mere  records  of  the  Divorce  Court  and  the 
milliners'  shops,  we  read  the  same  dark  truth— that 
luxury  has  increased  in  proportion  to  the  decline 
of  domestic  ideals,  and  that  all  standards,  even  the 
merely  commercial  one,  have  been  lowered  in  answer 
to  the  popular  demand  for  wild  mental  or  moral 
stimulants.  It  is  no  task  of  mine  to  preach  a  sermon 


378  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

on  this  old  theme,  or  to  play  Cassandra  in  the 
manner  familiar  to  students  of  reviews.  No  words 
of  mine  can  change  the  condition  of  things.  Time 
and  patience  alone  can  effect  any  reformation,  for 
the  day  is  long  past  when  any  single  utterance, 
however  prophetic,  could  have  much  effect  in  guiding 
the  popular  mind.  And  yet  it  has  been  repeatedly 
forced  upon  me  of  late  that,  of  all  things  wanted  by 
the  present  generation,  a  Satirist  is  wanted  most ; 
one  who  would  tell  the  world  its  sins  and  foibles,  not 
with  the  sneaking  snigger  or  familiar  wink  of  a 
Society  journalist,  but  with  a  voice  loud  and  clear 
enough  to  reverberate  from  Land's  End  to  John  o* 
Groats.  It  would  matter  little  where  this  voice  was 
first  heard.  It  might  be  in  the  pulpit,  it  might  be  on 
the  stage.  It  might  sound  as  the  voice  of  one  crying 
in  the  wilderness,  or  it  might  be  heard,  as  more  than 
once  heretofore,  from  the  very  heart  of  the  crowd. 
Since  Dickens  dropped  the  scourge,  satire  has 
been  sadly  at  a  discount,  and  we  are  in  reality  worse 
off  for  censores  morum  than  were  our  prototypes,  the 
prosperous  bourgeoisie  of  the  Second  Empire. 

So  closely  do  our  present  social  conditions  re- 
semble that  of  the  bourgeoisie  alluded  to,  that  even  a 
course  of  the  comedy  of  the  Empire  would  do  us 
nothing  but  good  ;  but,  unfortunately,  instead  of  a 
real  we  have  a  spurious  censor  morum,  and  the  in- 
struction from  abroad  is  interdicted.  The  late 
Licenser  of  Plays,  animated  by  a  too  blind  enthusiasm 
of  morality,  thought  he  was  doing  a  wise  thing  when 
he  forbade  the  performance  in  this  country  of  the 
masterpieces  of  Dumas  Fils  and  Sardou;  and  the 
present  Licenser,  though  a  man  of  more  liberal 
instincts,  still  sets  an  adamantine  countenance  against 
the  innovation.  True,  dramas  of  this  sort,  though, 


A  LAST  LOOK'  ROUND.  379 

doubtless,  open  to  the  criticism  which  has  been 
lavished  upon  them,  and  which  has  caused  them  to 
be  classed  in  France  under  " l'£cole  Brutale"  arc,  in 
the  best  sense,  works  of  art.  They  are,  moreover, 
fiery  social  satires — and  true  satire  is  never  quite 
unwholesome.  Under  the  foul  rule  of  the  French 
Empire  society  grew  luxurious,  reckless,  libidinousr 
and  rotten;  extravagance  in  dress,  in  manners  and 
customs,  in  conduct,  became  the  fashion  ;  it  was  the 
epoch  in  real  life  of  the  "  Faux  Bonhommes "  and 
"  Madame  Bovary."  As  a  bitter  comment  on  this 
state  of  things  came  the  so-called  "  comedy  "  of  the 
Empire.  Dumas  Fils,  a  melancholy  man,  began  by 
picturing  the  pathetic  side  of  the  life  of  courtesans, 
and  continued  by  preparing  for  Parisian  acceptance 
an  entire  system  of  theatrical  ethics — or  rather,  as  a 
critic  of  the  period  called  it,  "  la  logique  applique*e  au 
theatre."  And  what,  after  all,  was  the  sum  total  of 
his  philosophy  ?  "  Se  marier,  quand  on  est  jeune  et 
sain,  choisir,  dans  n'importe  quelk  classe,  une  bonne 
fille  franche  et  saine,  1'aimer  de  toute  son  ame  et  de 
toutes  ses  forces,  en  faire  une  compagne  sure  et  une 
mere  feconde,  travailler  pour  elever  ses  enfants  et 
leur  laisser  en  mourant  1'exemple  de  sa  vie  :  voila  la 
verite* — le  reste  n'est  qu'une  erreur,  crime,  ou  folie." 
If,  sooner  or  later,  this  good  girl  becomes  like  the 
"  Femme  de  Claude,"  shoot  her  ;  if  she  forms  a  grand 
passion,  like  "  Diane  de  Lys,"  and  it  is  encouraged, 
after  due  warning,  by  its  object,  kill  him.  Horrible 
morality,  doubtless,  but  grimly  appropriate  notwith- 
standing. The  comedies  of  M.  Dumas  are  a  series 
of  propositions  on  the  theme  of  the  married  state, 
but  their  moral  is  unmistakable ;  it  is  the  moral 
of  all  plays,  from  Scribe's  Trente  Ans  dans  la  Vie 
d'une  Femme  downwards,  viz.,  that  to  become 


380  A  LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

adulterous  is  natural,  but  inexpedient.  Sardou, 
another  melancholy  man,  preaches  the  same  lesson. 
The  French  comedy  of  the  Empire,  so  far  from  being 
an  incentive  to  vicious  living,  is  subacid,  platitu- 
dinous, rectangular — on  the  whole  not  very  enter- 
taining, but  edifying  as  a  social  study.  It  was,  at 
any  rate,  the  nearest  approach  to  Juvenal's  terrible 
manner  that  the  Empire  could  furnish ;  and  though 
it  was  Dead  Sea  fruit  enough,  many  who  devoured  it 
were  healed  perhaps  of  a  portion  of  their  disease. 

I  am  not  defending  the  comedy  of  the  Empire, 
though  I  infinitely  prefer  it  to  the  vile  importations 
in  which  what,  in  the  stage  directions  of  Goethe's 
Faust ,  is  called  an  "obscene  gesture"  supplies  the 
place  of  all  moral  teaching  or  rational  meaning.  He 
who  accepts  La  Marjolaine  and  rejects  La  Femme 
de  Claude  must  be  either  a  roue  or  an  ignoramus.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  here  in 
England  would  be  the  better  if  some  one  would  hold 
the  mirror  up  to  our  follies,  even  to  our  vices.  It  is 
useless  to  look  for  such  a  satirist  in  the  direction 
of  the  stage;  the  whole  drama  is  usurped  by  the 
spectre  of  that  British  matron  who  in  the  flesh  never 
patronises  the  drama  at  all.  Our  novelists  are  pig- 
mies, clinging  to  the  cast-off  coat-tails  of  departed 
giants,  and  their  social  satire,  when  they  do  attempt 
social  satire,  is  at  once  timid  and  verbose.  Our  poets 
are  dilettanti,  with  each  other  for  a  public,  and  Mr. 
Tennyson's  mildest  verses  for  a  precedent.  In  all 
the  lower  departments  of  art  and  literature  a  sad, 
unsocial  diffidence  embarrasses  the  speech  of  genius, 
and  instead  of  "  human  nature's  daily  food  "  we  get 
mannerism,  affectation,  and  the  cynicism  of  complete 
indifference  to  practical  social  problems. 

Meantime  Society,  mcenad-like,  twines  flowers  in 


A   LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  381 

her  hair,  and  goes  from  bad  to  worse.  The  only 
individuals  who  tell  her  of  her  vices  are  those  who 
flourish  through  them,  and  the  cue  of  these  is  to 
lament  over  the  ideals  they  first  overthrow,  an 
pretend  that  goodness  is  useless,  since  there  is  no 
power  but  evil  left.  Well,  even  a  comedy  of  the 
Empire  would  be  better  than  this ;  better  than  a 
journalism  which  degrades  the  social  standard  with 
every  quip  and  turn  characteristic  of  blind  snobb 
better  than  a  literature  which  hushes  up  every  vital 
question,  covers  up  every  social  sore,  reduces  life  and 
thought  to  the  "  prunes  and  prism  "  insisted  on  by 
Mr.  Mudie  ;  better  than  a  stage  which  is  either  unclean 
and  corybantic  or  pure  and  prurient  to  the  verge  of 
imbecility.  The  only  straightforward  and  truth- 
telling  force  at  present  at  work  is  modern  Science,  but 
it  is  not  sufficiently  aggressive  in  the  social  sphere  to 
be  of  much  avail.  So  the  feast  goes  on,  so  the  sooth- 
sayer is  put  aside,  and  the  voice  of  the  prophet  is 
unheard.  Some  fine  day,  nevertheless,  there  will  be 
a  revelation — the  handwriting  will  be  seen  on  the 
wall  in  the  colossal  cypher  of  some  supreme  Satirist. 
How  much  of  our  present  effulgent  civilisation  will 
last  till  then  ?  How  much  will  not  perish  without 
any  aid  from  without,  by  virtue  of  its  own  inherent 
folly  and  dry  rot  ?  Meantime,  even  a  temporary 
revelation  would  be  thankfully  accepted.  Such  satire 
as  Churchill  suddenly  lavished  upon  the  stage  would 
be  of  service  to  Society  just  now.  Even  satire  as 
wicked  as  that  with  which  Byron  deluged  the 
domestic  virtues"  of  the  Georges  would  not  be  alto- 
gether amiss.  Only,  it  must  come  in  simple  sp< 
not  in  such  mystic  dress  as  that  worn  by  St.  Thomas 
of  Chelsea  when  he  gave  forth  his  memorable  sartorial 
prophesies. 


382  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

VII. 
CONCLUSION. 

WHAT,  then,  is  the  status  quo  of  our  literature  just  at 
present?  Too  much  intellectual  activity,  and  too 
little ;  too  many  teachers,  and  too  few  ;  too  few 
creative  books,  and  a  plethora  of  "  criticisms."  For- 
tunately, great  stars  still  shine  in  the  literary  heavens. 
The  fame  of  Spencer,  of  Tennyson,  of  Browning,  of 
Whitman,  of  Hugo,  lends  us  assurance  that  the  god- 
like mood  is  still  possible,  that  the  godlike  speech 
may  still  be  heard.  But  against  such  divine  in- 
fluences must  be  set  those  of  men,  of  cicerones,  of 
newspaper  columns.  Authorised  critics  abound.  It 
is  an  authorised  critic  who  tells  us,  as  Mr.  Arnold,  that 
Shelley's  prose  is  likely  to  be  remembered  when  his 
verse  is  forgotten  ;  it  is  an  authorised  critic  who 
informs  us,  with  Mr.  Lowell,  that  Thoreau  is  a 
thoroughly  unauthorised  and  almost  offensive  person. 
Mr.  Arnold  and  Mr.  Lowell  are  cultivated  men,  who 
speak  with  authority  ;  their  temper  fascinates  the 
spirit  of  mediocrity,  and  their  culture  is  in  perfect 
harmony  with  the  culture  of  the  period.  Open  any 
newspaper,  and  we  shall  find  that  these  are  the  leaders 
of  critical  opinion  who  are  honoured  in  their  own 
country  and  whose  dicta  are  accepted  at  second  hand. 
I  pass  these  cicerones  politely  by.  Their  message  is 
not  to  me,  their  inspiration  is  not  mine.  I  have 
refused  to  listen  to  their  master  and  inspirer,  Goethe, 
and  I  shall  certainly  not  spend  my  time  with  any  of 
his  disciples. 

What,    then,    some    may    ask,    does    the   world 
want,   since  neither  mere    science,  nor  dilettantism, 


A   LAST  LOOK  ROUND.  383 

nor  culture,  nor  bogus  reputations,  will  serve  its 
turn  ?  It  wants  poetry,  and  not  criticism  ;  it  wants 
earnest  thought  and  life,  and  not  a  philosophy  of  the 
schoolroom ;  it  wants  fearless  truth  and  imagination, 
applied  to  all  the  great  phenomena  of  creation  ;  it 
wants,  in  one  word,  a  living  creed,  not  a  rehabilitation 
of  creeds  that  are  indeterminate.  Much  of  Carlyle's 
early  teaching  was  beautiful ;  we  believed  when  he 
taught  us  that  manly  dignity  and  independence, 
that  honest  work,  were  better  than  worldly  honours. 
Part  of  Goethe's  teaching  is  wise,  that  there  is  a 
law  which  makes  for  righteousness,  independently  of 
all  dogmas.  Mill  was  sane  in  his  generation,  while 
Comte  was  even  saner  in  his.  But  what  all  these 
men  have  missed  is  the  great  truth  that  literature  is 
not  a  criticism  of  life,  but  only  one  of  its  pheno- 
mena ;  that  manly  dignity  and  belief  in  culture,  and 
the  belief  in  the  utility  of  culture,  are  not  personal 
possessions  differentiating  men  from  each  other,  but 
part  of  the  universal  privileges  of  humanity  ;  that 
"  goodness  "  and  "  badness  "  are  terms  of  mere  rela- 
tion, applied  to  certain  incidents  of  human  action,  or 
applied  to  living  books,  but  possessing  no  absolute 
truth  whatever ;  that  Love  and  Love's  sorrow  alone 
are  true,  and,  being  so,  are  the  indisputable  posses- 
sion of  the  noblest  hero  and  the  lowest  criminal  under 
the  sun.  A  creed  of  this  sort  has  been  called 
optimism,  or  cosmopolitanism,  and  what  not ;  it  has 
been  confronted  of  late  years  with  the  arid  creed  of 
pessimism,  which  has  one  merit,  that  of  perfect 
logical  symmetry.  It  has  been  described  by  the 
contemporary  satirist  as  the  creed  which  "  proves 
wrong  is  as  good  as  right,  you  know,  and  one  man 
as  good  as  another."  Well,  those  who  hold  it  are 
quite  willing  to  accept  all  these  definitions.  Their 


384  A  LOOK  ROUND   LITERATURE. 

faith  is  that  God  will  be  justified,  even  to  the  very 
lowest  and  least  of  His  children.  As  poets,  they 
believe  in  all  the  gods,  from  Jesus  to  Josh.  They 
believe  in  Professor  Haeckel  and  they  believe  in  the 
Cardinal.  As  men  of  the  world,  they  turn  their  ears 
of  sympathy  to  everything  human.  As  students 
of  literature,  they  decline  to  accept  any  work  as 
supremely  creative  or  authoritative  which  does  not 
take  count  of  <?//the  forces  which  condition  the  moral 
immortality  of  the  human  race. 

Brought  down  to  the  lowest  platform  of  modern 
expediency,  what  does  this  creed  imply  in  letters  ? 
The  rejection  of  all  dilettantism,  the  apotheosis  of  the 
highest  and  truthfullest  of  human  teachers,  whether 
dead  or  contemporary,  the  recognition  of  every  kind 
of  noble  effort,  whether  in  the  region  of  the  lowest 
"  cakes  and  ale  "  or  the  highest  sphere  of  the  ideal. 
Above  all,  it  implies  distrust  of  individual  judg- 
ments or  "criticisms/'  and  faith  in  the  all-embracing 
catholicity  of  the  laws  of  life  and  literature. 

Literature  cannot  be  divorced  from  life,  any  more 
than  poetry  can  be  divorced  from  religion.  The  two 
are  one,  A  man  is  great  or  wise,  not  because  by 
humouring  his  reputation  he  succeeds  in  hocussing 
the  world  into  an  opinion  of  his  greatness  or  wisdom, 
not  because  he  is  corroborated  by  the  folly  of  his 
inferiors — as  Napoleon  was,  as  Goethe  is ;  but  because, 
like  Lincoln,  like  Whitman,  he  is  saner  than  his  fellows 
in  the  purest  sanity  of  goodness  and  love.  A  book  is 
great,  not  on  account  of  its  cleverness,  its  brilliance, 
its  literary  pretences,  but  on  account  of  that  integral 
wisdom  which  discharges  cleverness,  and  brilliance, 
and  even  pyrotechny,  through  the  magical  chemistry 
of  style;  the  style  which  is  neither  superficially 
effective  nor  openly  meretricious,  but  which  unites 


A   LAST  LOOK'  ROU.\  385 

perfect  harmony  of  meaning  with  sanity  of 
sion.     Words  are  the    merest   counters,  apart   from 
what   they   are    used    to   represent.     Books   are   the 
merest  waste  of  force,  unless  they  tell  us  somct'. 
new,  or  lend  a  new  significance  of  beauty  to  something 
that  is  old.     Judged   in  this   way,  not  one  book  in  a 
thousand  has  a  right  to  live. 

All  this  proves  only  that  criticism  is  really  a 
series  of  private  judgments,  more  or  less  fallible,  and 
that  the  value  of  a  man's  life  and  work  can  only  be 
estimated  after  a  very  long  period  of  probation. 
Meantime,  all  one  can  do  is  to  record  impressions  as 
honestly  as  he  can.  I  can  advance  no  scientific 
reason  for  seeing  a  great  genius  in  Robert  Browning, 
or  a  fine  painstaking  talent  in  George  Eliot,  for 
thinking  George  Meredith  almost  alone  in  his  power 
of  expressing  personal  passion,  and  Walt  Whitman 
supreme  in  his  power  of  conveying  moral  stimulation. 
I  can  take  a  skeleton  to  pieces  scientifically,  but  not 
a  living  soul.  I  might  prove  the  .absurdity  of  the 
writer  who  calls  herself  Ouida,  but  I  could  not  prove 
the  absurdity  of  any  honest  original  thinker,  however 
low  in  the  intellectual  scale.  I  am  helpless  before 
Mr.  Swinburne  or  any  authentic  poet,  while  quite  at 
my  ease  before  Macaulay  and  Professor  Aytoun. 

Finally,  it  must  not  be  understood  that  a  reader 
has  a  right  to  judge  a  thinker  by  the  nature  of  his 
opinions — in  other  words,  by  the  points  of  his  a:, 
ment  or  disagreement  with  one's  own  philosophy  of 
life.     This  would  be  to  say  that   I   could   not  enjoy 
Thackeray,  because   I   thought   him  ait  fend  narrow- 
minded,  or  appreciate  Sterne,  because  I   knew  him  to 
be  a  sham   sentimentalist.     A  writer    may    be    very 
provincial  yet  very  delightful  ;   in  that  rase,  hu\\ 
though  his  scope  of  view  and  his  sympathies  may  be 

2   C 


386  A   LOOK  ROUND  LITERATURE. 

narrow,  his  spirit  must  be  faithful  and  completely 
sane  within  its  range.  At  the  same  time,  the  greatest 
writers  are  those  who  possess,  in  combination  with 
technical  gifts,  the  grandest -and  most  all-embracing 
power  of  sympathetic  vision.  No  writer  can  be  truly 
great  who  believes,  like  Carlyle,  that  God  Almighty 
intended  the  negro  to  be  a  servant,  who  avows,  like 
Lamb,  that  he  is  miserable  anywhere  beyond  a 
London  street,  or  who  upholds,  like  Zola,  that  the 
world  is  a  sink  of  sensual  corruption.  For  great 
writing  is  great  wisdom,  and  great  wisdom  means 
great  goodness,  that  is,  love  for  and  sympathy  with 
all  created  things,  animate  and  inanimate.  Judged  by 
this  standard,  great  writers  are  very  few,  and  when 
they  appear,  are,  for  a  long  time,  dimly  guessed. 


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Victor  Hugo  :  His  Life  and  Work.  By  G.  BARNETT 
SMITH.  Crown  8vo.  With  a  Portrait  of  Hugo.  6s. 

The  Abbe  Liszt  :  The  Story  of  His  Life.  By  R. 
LEDOS  DE  BEAUFORT.  With  Three  Portraits.  6s. 


WAED  &  DOWNEY,  12,  York  Street,  Oovent  Garden,  London. 


511 
B72 


Buchanan,  Robert  Williams 
A  look  round  literature 


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